Published
2024-01-31
Metrics
Metrics Loading ...

Rights for all animals

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22490/26655489.7514
Section
Artículos de reflexión
Rosa María De la Torre Torres Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo

Western legal systems, heirs of Roman or Germanic traditions, consider other animals as things, as objects of property that can be instrumentalized and disposed of for the benefit of human beings without any limits. The cruelty with which animals exploited for human consumption are treated, whether as food, for entertainment, or for scientific purposes, has been a constant throughout human history. Although norms have been constructed to try to ensure the well-being of animals in exploitation processes, this has only served to normalize their instrumentalization. It is necessary to deconstruct the paradigms that have been constructed by law and remember that we are all animals, that physical or cognitive differences do not justify the exclusion of any sentient being from the moral and legal sphere. A new legal language must be built because we are all animals.