LEARN ABOUT THE NEW TREND IN ANIMAL LEGAL PROTECTION

New indicators on the international trend in terms of animal legal protection are the laws and resolutions of the courts of justice in different emblematic cases, making comparative law its main source of innovation when designing or redesigning the categories or legal concepts of terms such as quality of sentient beings and subject of law with the purpose of expanding the scope of protection of “animal” law.

The topic is not new, due to the existence of the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights since 1978 and the European Convention on the protection of companion animals in 2017.

It is surprising to observe the progress of this contemporary legal thinking in a context where still not all human beings are subjects of law or not all subjects of law have the same level of legal protection for different reasons (gender, religion, origin, politics, etc.). In other words, the field of protection is being extended towards the sphere of animals with a great deficit of justice among human beings themselves despite the lessons supposedly left by the coronavirus phenomenon.

In Peru, we have Law No. 30407 of 2016, which aims to ensure the welfare and protection of all domestic or wild vertebrate animals kept in captivity and prevent humans from causing unnecessary pain or suffering, injury or causing death, directly or indirectly, even more so if they are considered “sentient beings”. This law obliges the owners of animals to provide them with an adequate environment, food and medical attention if necessary.

Finally, to give an example, the Fifth Supraprovincial Unipersonal Criminal Court of Chiclayo and Ferreñafe in Case No. 06261-2020 issued a conviction for the commission of the crime against patrimony in the modality of acts of cruelty against domestic animals, typified in article 206-A° of the Criminal Code, after the convicted person threw a stone in the eye of the animal in circumstances in which the owner of “Cielo” was taking her for a walk in order to allow her to fulfill her physiological needs. For these acts she was sentenced to one year imprisonment, 100 days fine equivalent to the sum of five hundred soles (S/. 500.00), and definitive incapacity to keep animals, according to article 36° numeral 13) of the Penal Code, according to the Revista de Investigaciones Veterinarias del Perú vol.34 Nº 2 Lima mar/abr.2023 E pub 28-Apr-2023. At Estudio Bazán we are prepared and identified with Animal Law.