Law reform | Sentient Animal Law

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'Modern ISSUES and modern GOALS need MODERN tools, revised models, and ...

... up-to-date laws'
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Helping you and those you work with ...

... to 'evolve standards of animal welfare' so LAWFUL means MORE THAN JUST 'don't be cruel'

Providing shade is an example of positive animal welfare where the animal can make a CHOICE about what it finds more comfortable, interesting or pleasurable. With positive animal welfare law, the provision of shade would foreseeably be one of a suite of changes that make a pragmatic beneficial difference to the daily life experience of animals.

The science of the Five Domains validates what most people inherently know – animals experience pain AND pleasure.

Law reform begins with recognising that existing law fails to fit with today’s science, expectations and needs.

The problem we are focused on is today’s outdated animal-law rulebook, which underpins every practice, every standard, and every use of animals.

It is the animal-law rulebook that shapes public attitudes about animals, decides what people’s treatment of animals are legally permissible or not, and it’s the rulebook that permits-and-perpetuates widespread animal practices to the dismay, disappointment and frustration of those people and organisations advocating for better standards of animal welfare.

Existing anti-cruelty law asserts

"animals are capable of feeling and experiencing ("sentient") negative states ("suffering"); so
people in charge of animals have a responsibility ("duty of care") to
refrain from acts or omissions that cause an animal to suffer unnecessarily

The 3-word law reform would update the law so that it asserts

"animals are capable of feeling and experiencing ("sentient") negative states ("suffering") AND POSITIVE STATES; so
people in charge of animals have a responsibility ("duty of care") to
refrain from acts or omissions that cause an animal to suffer unnecessarily AND provide animals with access to comforts, interests and pleasure.

Legal reform: For law that applies a responsibility for an animal's experience of pain AND its pleasure.

The 3-word law reform advocated by SAL

In its most basic form, this law reform can be viewed as a 3 word law reform. The current law applies legal responsibilities to the human caregiver regarding the sentient animals negative states ("anti-cruelty law). The law reform makes people responsible for the sentient animal's negative states "AND positive states".

There are a number of pathways to achieving the necessary law reform. The Sentient Animal Law Foundation is focused on aligning with decision-makers in organisations whose objectives, activities and responsibilities involve standards of animal welfare.

The positive animal welfare law reform seeks to implement the steps set out below. The reform is relevant to governments, NGO's and any organisation seeking to ensure that existing laws are fit for modern world purposes.

Step 1: Legislatively define sentience in a manner that is consistent with the principles of the Five Domains

In order to provide unequivocal clarity regarding a government's commitment to recognition, definition, and application of sentience in a manner that meaningfully elevates standards of animal welfare, Sentient Animal Law recommends the amendments below, namely:

A. Include explicit legislative recognition of animals as sentient in the stated Purposes/Objects/Principles of primary legislation i.e. "This Act is to reform the law relating to the welfare of animals and, in particular, to recognise that animals are sentient"; AND

B. Legislatively define “sentience” in a manner that utilises the terminology within the authoritative science of the Five Domains, stating “sentience means that animals experience negative and positive [physical, mental and emotional] states”.

QUESTIONS?

Step 2: Provide supporting definitions in the updated legislation

SAL further recommends that in order to clearly and unequivocally use legislation to shape attitudes and practices that: (a) continue to prevent animal cruelty (i.e. acts or omissions that cause an animal to feel or experience negative states of pain, distress or suffering); and (b) promote positive animal welfare; the jurisdiction's industry, consumers and animals would benefit by also:

Defining “negative states” as “negative states means an animal’s feeling or experience of pain, distress, or suffering”; AND

Defining “positive states” as “positive states means an animal’s feeling or experience of comfort, interest, or pleasure”.

Step 3: Change legislative references regarding negative states to explicitly add positive states

Amending and updating existing legislative references to negative states to clearly and unequivocally create legal responsibility (“duty of care”) for the positive states of animals involves replacing traditional animal welfare legislative references to “pain, distress and suffering” with terminology that references negative and positive states, for example, “negative and positive states”.

This clearly and unequivocally creates a duty for positive states, rather than risking or creating confusion and potential misinterpretation that recognition of animals as sentient might nonetheless perpetuate a duty of care referencing for just the animal's pain and suffering (negative states).

For example, application of this "negative and positive" terminology would result in a change:

FROM “Offences” (1) A person who does or omits to do any act with the result that unreasonable pain or suffering is caused…” [Quoted from Victoria, Australia's existing animal welfare legislation - Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, s36}

TO “Offences” (1) A person who does or omits to do any act with the result that the animal experiences unreasonable negative states or has inadequate opportunity to experience positive states…”

How to recognise genuinely 'modern' animal welfare and law

In addition to legally recognising the inherent value of animals, the subject of animal law deals with legal governance of the human-animal relationship.

For the last 200 years, animal law has applied a legal responsibility for just half of the animal's life experience (‘anti-cruelty), specifically, its suffering (‘negative states’).
The inseparable nature of the human-animal relationship means that the ‘half’ duty of care within the anti-cruelty model of animal law has substantive detrimental and limiting consequences for animals and people.

Referencing the three subgroups of animal law (i.e. private animal law, public animal law and international animal law) reveals that the duty of care established by animal law is relevant to multiple modern issues ranging from:

domestic violence and bullying in school playgrounds, workplaces, and homes to
issues of animal welfare, consumer trust and trade opportunities for industry, in addition to
animal-related international obligations of countries to issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and the sustainable development goals of the United Nations.

The high stakes and outcomes associated with the duty of care established within animal law have resulted in a recognised need nationally and internationally to ‘elevate standards of animal welfare’. Consideration regarding how to elevate standards of animal welfare has prompted discussions about animal ‘sentience’ by multiple stakeholders from around the world.

Modern animal law does more than just protect animals from cruelty.

'Modern' animal law would reflect modern animal welfare concepts and is identifiable by assessing the duty of care within the presentations, proposals and regulatory reforms. Reflecting the modern science of the Five Domains, modern animal law would apply responsibilities for both the negative and positive states of an animal by:

retaining legal responsibilities to protect animals from cruelty (‘negative states’), AND
extending law’s duty of care by requiring people to provide animals with opportunities to experience comfort, interest and enjoyment (‘positive states’, ‘positive animal welfare’).

For any country targeting genuinely ‘modern’ animal law, there are five key principles to understanding the critical importance of legislatively defining sentience in a manner that is clearly and unequivocally consistent with the modern science of the Five Domains.

Those five key principles are:

Firstly, existing anti-cruelty law implicitly recognizes animals as sentient. This principle derives from the logic that (a) by definition sentience means the ability to ‘feel and experience’, and (b) anti-cruelty law prohibits actions that result in an animal ‘feeling or experiencing’ unnecessary suffering (‘negative states’). So, ‘modern’ law is not achieved by asking if animals are sentient given that the answer to that question was decided in the affirmative by lawmakers 200 years ago.
Secondly, the modern science of the Five Domains validates that sentient animals feel and experience negative and positive states. Recognition that an animal’s welfare involves more than simply the avoidance of pain and suffering (‘negative states’) has given rise to the concept of ‘positive animal welfare’.
Thirdly, the law functions on the principle of responsibility (‘duty of care’). Everything about legislation (e.g. offences, penalties and enforcement powers) revolves around the question ‘what people are responsible, accountable and liable for’? This principle may be summarised as ‘nothing changes in nationwide behaviours if you do not change the duty of care’. Understanding of this principle reveals why explicit legislative recognition of animal sentience alone predictably fails to result in meaningful change. Explicit recognition that fails to provide a legislative definition that distinguishes negative and positive states (a) is simply a restatement of the 200-year old implicit recognition of sentience within anti-cruelty law, and (b) fails to clearly and unequivocally extend the duty of care beyond protecting animals from cruelty (i.e. pain, distress or suffering assessed by law as unnecessary).
Fourth, positive animal welfare practices are already being implemented by the top 11% of industries, corporates and other animal-related providers. In addition to validating that positive animal welfare is realistic and practicable, this fourth point highlights that engaging the well-established process of law reform to extend the current duty of care with ‘positive animal welfare law’ replicates the practices of today’s top performers. The outcome is that ‘today's standards of best practice, become tomorrow's norm’.
Fifth, the three-word reform that gives a jurisdiction genuinely ‘modern’ animal law that reflects today's standards of good practice and contemporary scientific knowledge involves legislatively defining sentience with a simple statement that “sentience means that animals experience negative and positive states”.

AVAILABILITY FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION

The Sentient Animal Law Foundation is available to present and/or explain how the 3-word sentient animal law reform delivers genuinely 'modern' animal law that addresses modern private, public and international needs.

Remember, "less pain is NOT the same as more pleasure"

It's naturally important to keep anti-cruelty deterrence measures in place but limiting proposed initiatives to reducing an animal’s pain sadly miss the point about the critical difference between anti-cruelty and “positive animal welfare”.

You can recognise those that remain confused (or unwilling) about the differences. Their talks, speeches and presentations often focus almost exclusively on "increased penalties" and standing against "cruelty" because it's "intolerable" (or words to the same effect) that we should accept an animal's pain, distress and suffering. They're correct of course - but the point is that their talks, speeches and presentations notably continue to reflect a focus on negative states - reference to responsibility for the positive life experiences of animals is conspicuous by its absence.

Try it. The next time you listen to someone speaking about animal law and our responsibilities, count the number of times they reference cruelty in contrast to the number of times they refer to the animal's pleasure.

If you could change ONE thing about how animals are treated, what would it be?

With a 3-word law reform, you can

What's important to an animal in terms of its positive states?

With positive animal welfare law, acceptable animal welfare requires that people in charge of animals provide animals in their care with opportunities to have positive experiences while continuing to minimise negative ones.

"Opportunity" means providing access to positive states so that the animals can exercise a choice. For example, not all animals may seek the shelter of a tree or a shade cover but the point is to provide them with that option.

Positive experiences include more than toys. Opportunities for comfort, interest and pleasure include providing shelter for farmed animals, a clean environment for animals at home, opportunities to socialise, bedding and environment choices, and foods that are more than a mono form survival diet that conveniently translates to food conversion rates on an Excel spreadsheet.

What else is important to an animal? Identifying the answer to that question is a process of course, but it’s not an impossible one. Ask most animal owners and they’ll access common sense, experience and observation to quickly tell you what their animal’s preferences are. But science provides “proof” of what most people inherently know by routinely constructing experiments studying animal choices and outcomes – it’s providing the opportunity for the animal to make a CHOICE that is a key ingredient of positive animal welfare.

The Sentient Animal Law Foundation doesn't see positive animal welfare as the final end-of-the-journey solution.

But just as the Five Freedoms science extended the duty of care from animal "protection" concepts to animal "welfare", the science of the Five Domains has validated that animals experience positive states thereby validating an extension of the 'duty of care' to include positive animal welfare.
As the human-animal relationship evolves, this step will be retrospectively viewed as one in the continuing journey.

Time to do more than take responsibility for just half of the sentient animal's life experience

In England during the early 1800s, the early political champions of animal protection law were ridiculed, jeered, and literally laughed out of Parliament. But in 1822, those champions were successful in the first animal protection law in England being put in place. That law obviously recognised that animals could feel and experience (i.e. were “sentient”) by the fact that early legislators decided to create law that took responsibility for protecting animals from feeling and experiencing pain, distress or suffering that society, via its Courts, deemed to be unnecessary.

What society classifies as “necessary” varies. Sometimes “necessary” is interpreted by reference to the interests of the animal (e.g. preventing blatant acts of cruelty such as “cruelly beating, kicking, ill-treating, overriding, overdriving, overloading, torturing, infuriating or terrifying an animal”). Necessary may also be extended to consider what is in the interests of the owner of the animal, or the community.

200 years ago, that first animal protection law in England was a revolutionary achievement. It overcame widespread views that a person “could do what they wanted with their property". As English law spread around the world with the early colonialists, it shaped the rules in ways that can still be recognised in laws today.

Any country that has law which protects animals from feeling or experiencing unnecessary pain, distress or suffering, implicitly recognises that those protected animals are sentient.

So today's recognition of animals as sentient is not revolutionary - it is simply explicitly stating what has been implicit for hundreds of years.

So, for those wanting to elevate standards of animal care, sentience is the doorway to the real issue.

The question is NOT whether animals are sentient, or whether they suffer. That's been affirmed by the law hundreds of years ago.

What will you apply responsibility for?

The pivotal issue for today's law reformers shaping the law that governs the human-animal relationship today and for decades to come is whether we, as a society, via our law, will take responsibility ("duty of care") for their pleasure ("positive states") rather than just their pain ("negative states", "anti-cruelty law").

Sentient Animal Law says "yes" and knows how to make positive animal welfare "the law".

The evolution of animal law has always needed its champions

Today it needs champions who want a law that does more than simply refrain from cruelty because less pain is not the same as more pleasure.

Despite the best of intentions, there continues to be misunderstanding, confusion and conflicts of interest about sentience. Sentience is the doorway to potential change, not the deliverer of change.

Explicitly recognising animals as sentient in law without a corresponding shift in the duty of care has consistently failed to shift applied standards of care above existing baseline minimums.

BUT, if you legislatively define sentience in a manner that applies responsibility ("duty of care") for the animal's positive states, you'll open the door to changes in standards, practices, and the daily life experience of each animal.

All stakeholders benefit

A definition of sentience that clearly extends the current duty of care to include a responsibility on the human caregiver to provide animals in their care with opportunities to experience positive states (“positive animal welfare law”) would result in a legal framework that:

supports and expands the higher practice standards already being implemented by better farmers/animal owners; and
fosters the trust of the public/consumers in industry which, in turn
creates trade opportunities for industry within, and beyond, the jurisdiction.

Drafting animal welfare legislation so that the jurisdiction is among the first to have law that is the next step in the evolution of animal law, not only demonstrates genuine progressive leadership to the national and international community, but also futureproofs that jurisdiction's position in meeting growing community and global demand for more than simply protection from cruelty for law-and-society's “sentient” animal.

Got questions? We'd be delighted to demonstrate why positive animal welfare law is a quicker, easier and more efficient way to deliver pragmatic changes to the daily lives of animals and people, and assist initiatives seeking to resolve global issues, than any other proposed model of law reform.

Get in Touch - wherever possible, we're happy to present at conferences, webinars, summits and other events where "elevating standards of animal welfare" is on the agenda.

GET IN TOUCH

Business as usual OR an updated law that's fit for modern world needs, risks and opportunities?

Law's sentient animal is at a legal crossroads.

Down Path A is "business as usual" and perpetuation of law that operates on basic minimums. It is unfit for a recovering planet, consumer expectations, or resolving existing global animal-related issues - but it's the known, and there are strong voices who resist the uncertainty and cost of "change".

Down Path B is positive animal welfare law.

For those seeking to elevate standards of sentient animal welfare, there are two critical lessons to recognise:

Simply explicitly recognising animals as sentient in legislation predictably fails to result in pragmatic change. The Treaty of Lisbon and New Zealand's 2015 Amendment to its animal welfare legislation both recognised animals as sentient and both failed to define sentience by reference to the animal's negative and positive states. They both stand as examples of good intentions that failed to result in pragmatic changes to the daily lives of animals.
Meaningful change requires an evolution of the duty of care (i.e. legally enforceable responsibility). Positive animal welfare law doesn't do away with existing duties to prevent animal cruelty, it extends the current duty by obligating the human caregiver to also provide animals with opportunities to experience positive states.

We'd love to show you how this law reform works for you at your next conference, webinar or any other similar event

We can:

demystify the discussions, confusions and legal misunderstanding about animal sentience
demonstrate the predictable pathways and outcomes of 'sentience' recognition vs definition,
address stakeholder concerns, opportunities and benefits obtained by those who are already implementing policies that do more than just protect animals from cruelty
illustrate the messaging that results in wide stakeholder understanding and therefore agreement
demonstrate how this singular reform is legal reform is consistent with existing legal models and methodologies thereby avoiding the usual barriers of alternative creative proposals on how to deliver timely and effective outcomes on global issues, national interests, and the lives of animals and people.