Are Animal Rights and Legal Protection of the Environment compatible?

Abstract

En los últimos años el discurso sobre los derechos de los animales ha pasado de ser una cuestión académica a producir algunos cambios legales en algunos países considerando a los animales como seres sintientes. El debate sobre los derechos de los animales se ha movido en el marco de la discusión entre abolicionismo y regulación. El primero exige la eliminación de las relación entre humanos y animales, con lo que habría que dejar que estos vivieran en sus medios sin intervención humana alguna. El segundo considera que se pueden crear relaciones entre animales y humanos más justas, realizando cambios en las normas legales como evitando que sean objetos de propiedad. En este segundo grupo hay desde posturas más moderadas que abogan por pequeños cambios que mejoren las condiciones de vida de algunos animales (sobre todo en las granjas industriales) a otras que demandan la plena ciudadanía para los animales domésticos. Las consecuencias de la industria animal y el consumo de carne sobre el cambio climático han sido ampliamente estudiados. La preocupación por las consecuencias sobre el cambio climático han llevado a diferentes Tratados y Acuerdos Internacionales como el de París de 2015. Sin embargo estos acuerdos vienen formulados de forma muy general y sorprendentemente no prestan atención a la industria alimentaria y sus efectos sobre el cambio climático. Tradicionalmente ambientalismo y animalismo han chocado en sus estrategias e intereses porque el primero puede aceptar el sacrificio de animales. En este trabajo se tratará de analizar si los objetivos perseguidos por ambientalismo y animalismo son o no compatibles. Para ello hay que aclarar el significado del derecho a un medio ambiente sano y quién es el titular de este derecho, que algunas constituciones latinoamericanas recientemente han incluido en su catálogo de derechos. En segundo lugar, es preciso aclarar si cuando hablamos de derechos de los animales los titulares son los animales o los seres humanos. Si la respuesta es que los animales son agentes y miembros de la comunidad moral y sujetos de derechos, ¿es posible que esto sea compatible con el derecho a un medio ambiente sano? Se analizarán las combinaciones de respuestas a estas preguntas que pueden plantearse para ver si alguna de ellas consigue aunar los dos objetivos: la protección de los animales y del medio ambiente. Para ello no solo se partirá de un enfoque filosófico, sino también del análisis de recientes cambios normativos que se han producido en algunos países.

In the last years the discourse about animal rights has passed from the academia discussion to some legal changes in some countries considering animals as sentient beings. The debate about animal rights has moved in the framework of the discussion between abolitionism and regulation. The first one demands the elimination of the relations among human beings and animals because those relations always imply domination and slavery (Francione, 2008). Following this contention, the solution would be leaving animals in their environment without any intervention of human beings. The second one considers that there are ways of relationship between animals and humans that can be just; what it is necessary is doing some legal changes in order to protect animal interests, for example, considering that animals are not property objects but beings who suffer and it is necessary to eliminate or reduce that suffering. The proposals are diverse: from those ones who argue for reduce suffering in the industrial farming regulating the space, the health protection and the feeding of these animals (Garner, 2010) to other ones, more ambitious, who demand full citizenship to domesticated animals (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011). These different contentions depend on the conception on rights they support and on if they do consider or not animals as moral subjects and, in consequence, they can hold moral and legal rights. The effects of industrial farming and meat consumption over climate change and global warming have been studied (Safran Foer, 2009). The preoccupation about these important dangers to the life in the planet has addressed countries to make some International Conventions and Agreements like the one adopted in Paris in 2015. However, these agreements and the different documents and rules that each country has approved use to be very general and, surprisingly, they do not pay attention to the effects of industrial farming over global warming and their effects over climate change. However, the discourse about animal rights and the protection of the environment not always have shared their objectives and their strategies. Environmentalism can imply sometimes the death of animals if their life can affect the equilibrium of the ecosystems (Faria, 2011). If we understand that all animals have a primary moral right to life, then environmentalism and animalism would be incompatible. In this paper the question about if the legal protection of environment and the legal protection of animals are or not compatible will be analyzed. To answer this question, it is important to clarify some concepts that are behind. Firstly, what is the meaning of the right to a healthy Environment? Who is the holder of this right? The Environment, as some Latino American constitutions have included in recent reforms, or the human being who has an interest in take care of the planet where we live? In this last case, are present human beings the holders or also future generations (Rodriguez Palop, 2002)? Secondly, when we talk about animal rights, who is the holder of these rights, the animals or the human beings? If the answer is that animals are moral agents and members of the moral community and subjects of rights how can we make compatible with human rights and in concrete with the right to a healthy Environment? In this paper the combination of the different answers to these questions will be examined trying to see if the protection of animals and environment is compatible. The analysis will be made from the perspective of legal philosophy using and studying the different cases and the consequences derived for each one with reference to the necessary legal changes would be required to do. In this sense, some concrete cases of legal changes will be used as examples of the arguments that are exposed.