We know that the treatment most laws reserve for other animals is discriminatory, if not downright hypocritical.
Having become aware of international social movements seeking to grant greater protection to other animals, and having also taken note of the numerous and consistent results of scientific research proving the existence of sentience in most other animals, most legislators have decided to remove non-human animals from the category of things or movable property.
Today, it is no longer rare to read in the legislation of many countries that non-human animals are ‘sentient beings’. But what is a sentient being in a legal system that only recognises the distinction between persons and property? Ultimately, nothing at all!
Sentient being is a legal status that does not exist in law and therefore does not confer any rights on the individuals to whom it is attributed. This is why, in its dealings with the outside world, the legislator always considers non-human animals as movable property that can be owned, traded, exploited economically and, of course, destroyed without the slightest qualms.
The general public is often unaware of this, but alongside this openly discriminatory positive law, there is a whole series of international legal standards that grant non-human animals non-human legal personality and substantially greater rights. This is what legal professionals refer to as ‘soft law’.
Although not binding, these international legal norms nonetheless exist and have important consequences in domestic and international law.
Here is a list of all the international declarations that form an integral part of international soft law and are likely to have a definite impact on the jurisprudential treatment of cases relating to the legal status of non-human animals.
The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights (UDAR) was adopted by the International League for Animal Rights in September 1977 in London, then solemnly proclaimed on 15 October 1978 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Its text was revised for the first time in 1989, then in 2018 to become the Declaration of Animal Rights (DAR). It constitutes a philosophical statement on the relationship that must now be established between the human species and other animal species.
This declaration was drafted by several political and academic figures, including Nobel Prize winner Alfred Kastler. It was initiated by the International League for Animal Rights, whose French branch (now called La Fondation droit animal, éthique et sciences) played a major role in drafting the text.
https://www.fondation-droit-animal.org/la-fondation/declaration-des-droits-de-lanimal/
The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness refers to the manifesto initiated by Jaak Panksepp, Diana Reiss, David Edelman, Bruno Van Swinderen, Philip Low and Christof Koch, then signed in June 2012 at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) during a series of lectures on consciousness in human and non-human animals. The Declaration concludes that non-human animals have consciousness similar to that of human animals.
https://www.cahiers-antispecistes.org/declaration-de-cambridge-sur-la-conscience/
The Declaration on the Legal Personality of Animals, known as the Toulon Declaration, proclaimed on 29 March 2019 at the University of Toulon, is a text calling for the creation of legal personality for non-human animals.
This declaration, ‘with a national and international scope’, concluded a university symposium on the legal personality of animals held at the University of Toulon on 29 March 2019. The aim of the Toulon Declaration is to ‘redefine the category of persons to include non-human natural persons’.
The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation is a manifesto published on 4 October 2022 in which more than 550 researchers and academics specialising in moral and political philosophy declare their support for the idea that the end of all forms of animal farming, fishing and exploitation in general is the only collective goal that is both realistic and just.
This declaration refers both in its title and explicitly in its text to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, made public in 2012, which establishes the presence in mammals, birds and many other animals of the substrates necessary for consciousness and the ability to exhibit intentional behaviour. This initial declaration also inspired a response in the field of law in 2019, the Toulon Declaration, defending the legal personality of animals.
The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation was initiated by Martin Gibert, Valéry Giroux and François Jaquet, three researchers from the Groupe de recherche en éthique environnementale et animale (GRÉEA), associated with the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ) in Montreal. It was published on 4 October 2022 on World Animal Day.
In the preamble, the signatories emphasise that they come from different philosophical traditions and rarely agree with each other. However, they agree on the fundamentally unjust nature of subjecting animals to unnecessary violence and condemn ‘all practices that involve treating animals as things or commodities’ and on the need to profoundly transform our relationships with other animals by ending their exploitation. They base this on the well-established fact in ethology that most exploited animals are sentient, i.e. capable of subjectively experiencing pleasant or unpleasant things.
In favour of closing slaughterhouses, ending fishing and developing plant-based agriculture, the signatories lucidly acknowledge that, even if it is ‘the only collective horizon that is both realistic and just’, such a project will require ‘giving up deeply rooted speciesist habits and radically transforming some of our institutions’.
https://greea.ca/declaration-de-montreal-sur-lexploitation-animale/
The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness of 19 April 2024 was launched by three other philosophers, Kristin Andrew, Jonathan Birch and Jeff Sebo. Signatories include world-renowned experts on human consciousness (David Chalmers, Steven Harnad, Anil Seth and Christof Koch), as well as experts on birds (Konstantin Anokhin), reptiles (Gordon M. Burghardt), fish (Jonathan Balcombe, Culum Brown), octopuses (Robyn Crook, Peter Godfrey-Smith), crustaceans (Robert Elwood) and insects (Lars Chittka). Here is the full version, which summarises the conclusions of research in this field (free translation).
Which animals have the capacity for conscious experience? Although many uncertainties remain, there is broad consensus on certain points.
Firstly, the capacity of mammals and birds to have conscious experiences is well established scientifically.
Second, experimental evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fish) and many invertebrates (including, at a minimum, cephalopod molluscs, decapod crustaceans, and insects).
Third, when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility when making decisions that affect that animal. We should consider the risks to their well-being and use scientific findings to inform our responses to those risks.
https://lamorce.co/connaissez-vous-la-declaration-de-new-york-sur-la-conscience-animale/
The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles deemed useful by its supporters for building a just, sustainable and peaceful world in the 21st century. Created following a global consultation process and endorsed by organisations representing millions of people, the Charter ‘seeks to inspire within all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family, the larger community of life, and future generations.’ It calls on humanity to participate in the creation of a global partnership at a critical moment in history. The Earth Vision Ethics Charter maintains that environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. The Charter aims to provide a new framework for thinking about and addressing these major issues. The Earth Charter Initiative organisation exists to promote the Charter.
The Charter of the Rights of the Living is an international text proclaimed on 26 May 2021 in connection with the United Nations’ Harmony with Nature programme.
The text was proclaimed by Lorena Bilicic, Caroline Regad and Cédric Riot, experts from the UN programme. During the solemn proclamation of the Charter, simultaneously in New York (United States), Toulon (France) and Buenos Aires (Argentina), programme manager Maria Mercedes Sanchez stated that ‘the Charter for the Rights of the Living aims to inspire non-anthropocentric institutional reforms around the world’.
The Charter of the Rights of the Living calls on States to strike a balance between the interests of living beings, animals and nature in order to better consider the living world.
The text is thus one of the international documents accompanying the paradigm shift in the defence of non-human animals and nature.
Dated 17 February 2025 and written by a collective of nine French researchers, it was recently presented as a major legal advance for animal protection in Europe.
https://static.actu.fr/uploads/2025/01/deda.pdf
For a critical analysis: https://lamorce.co/les-declarations-de-droits-des-animaux-progres-ou-obstacle/