Species justice and harm to animals - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 121

recognition of rights for animals. Central to this approach is changing
the legal character of animals from property to legal, rights-bearing
entities (see Wise, 2001, 2004; Svard, 2007). The intention is to prevent
the exploitation of nonhuman animals, both in regards to their products
(such as milk, eggs and wool) and their lives (as in the case of animals
killed for food). Any type of poisoning, trapping or hunting is seen
as wrong, even where justified in terms of certain species impinging
upon others (for example, attempts to eradicate foxes in Tasmania). In
essence, veganism is set as the baseline for politics and the moral rights
of each individual animal is asserted (Svard, 2007).
In addressing the issue of animal abuse, Beirne (2009) argues that if
the violation of animals' rights is to be taken seriously, then we need to
examine why some harms to animals are defined as criminal, others as
abusive but not criminal, and still others as neither criminal nor abusive.
In pointing this out, Beirne (2009) emphasises that exploring these
questions necessarily leads to a more inclusive concept of harm. It also
means that much more empirical work needs to be done to examine
how laws are actually put into practice, where specific human interests
fit into the picture, and how the social control of animal abuse ought
to be carried out at an institutional level. The basic argument is that
animals should count:
the animal protection cause simply asks that animals not be
treated like things but respected as creatures with inherent
rights. It also maintains that we have an ethical responsibility
not to abuse them. Asserting the rights of animals to be
protected from human cruelty is just the affirmative version
of the timeless principle that it is wrong to treat them cruelly.
(Baur, 2008: 190)
How animals currently count and how they should count, though,
is part of the conundrum raised by Beirne (2009). It is also part and
parcel of wider debates within the animal rights and welfare literature
on how best to conceptualise the relationship between humans and
nonhuman animals generally.
animals, particular species and individuals
There is a parallel to be drawn between criminal justice as an institution
and the fact that most animal welfare cases continue to involve specific
acts of cruelty and abuse. In both cases the emphasis is on the individual
animal, rather than the social structures, processes and patterns of power