Animal Rights and Environmental Law

Abstract

Animal rights have the potential to reinforce, but also to conflict with, environmental law objectives. In order to understand what granting animals legal rights would entail, we should therefore consider which animal interests should be legally protected as well as how these protected interests would interact with norms and goals of environmental law. More consideration should also be given to fundamental questions regarding rights in general (such as how to identify them and how they function as legal tools), as well as to judicial patterns in the context of animal protection and the rationale underpinning these patterns. Acquiring a clearer understanding of these issues would elucidate the practical consequences of conferring legal rights on animals and help identify the strategy with the highest chances of success in terms of improving animal, and potentially also environmental, protection.