Legal dereification of animals

Tomasz Pietrzykowski and Małgorzata Lubelska-Sazanów

Chapter 8 in Research Handbook on Animal Law and Animal Rights, 2025, pp 160-177 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Granting animals the status of sentient creatures that cannot be classified by law as mere things (rei) is the most significant achievement of 20th-century animal law. The so-called dereification abandons the centuries-old tradition of legally conceptualizing animals as things (rei) while deliberately avoiding granting them personhood. Therefore, animals remain caught between the traditional dichotomy of persons and things. This situation is fraught with ambiguities and inconsistencies that permeate the legal systems where animals have been dereified. The authors discuss the prospects and conditions for overcoming the ubiquitous “dereification gap” left by existing regulatory approaches. The further evolution of animal status may entail devising a comprehensive right for animals, alternative to ownership. A more radical solution might be granting animals some form of personhood and right-holding capacity. However, the most plausible and balanced idea could be a new status of non-personal subjects of the law, in which animal status could be clearly distinct from mere objects and full-fledged persons.

Keywords: Animal; Property; Thing; Person; Dereification; Non-personal subject of law; Rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035324873
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