It is a rare event to begin reading an article and soon realize that the approach the author is taking is so novel, so creative, so analytically precise, and indeed so brilliant that it should redirect and reshape an entire field of study. I am pleased to jot about an article that does just that: Saskia Stucki’s Animal Warfare Law and the Need for an Animal Law of Peace: A Comparative Reconstruction. Stucki begins with a short quote from George Orwell’s 1984: “War is peace.” This is far more than a catchy epigraph; it strikes at the heart of the main problem with how humans treat animals in law and society all over the world today. In many or even most jurisdictions, what is typically called “animal welfare law” seemingly refers to laws intended to ensure the welfare of animals. As Stucki argues so clearly, that is a seriously flawed understanding of the situation of animals. Most animals are used and exploited by humans for human desires, and the largest number of animals by far are ones whom humans raise to kill for food. What does welfare possibly mean when we are talking about use, exploitation, and slaughter? For proponents of an animal welfare strategy, it means reducing suffering.
For some animal advocates, there is no chance of providing any meaningful welfare in these situations, and it is Orwellian to say that an animal was killed for food in a high welfare way, or that the welfare needs of an elephant in a circus were attended to when the only way to make elephants perform entirely unnatural tricks is through brute force in training. To actually improve the condition of animals demands recognition that they are rights holders and actual implementation of basic rights: the rights to liberty and bodily integrity, for example. Getting the animal out of the cage altogether, not just a more comfortable cage. These two approaches may seem to be running on different tracks and moving in different directions, and never the twain shall meet. This article rejects the notion that animal welfare law and animal rights are “competing and mutually exclusive paradigms for the legal protection of animals.” (P. 9.) The brilliance of this article is that Stucki does not merely take down this notion. She shows that the two approaches are instead “distinct yet complementary bodies of law” (P. 9) by clearly and precisely analogizing the laws regarding animals to the laws regarding war.
That brings us back to the title. “Animal warfare law”—what is that? This, Stucki argues, is what we currently call animal welfare law. This welfare of animals that so many jurisdictions apparently provide for must be seen against the backdrop of institutionalized violence and exploitation. In that sense, animal welfare law (AWL) serves a similar function as international humanitarian law (IHL) insofar as they both regulate, restrain, and humanize violence. (P. 3.) IHL is part of a triad in international law. The law of peace seeks to prevent war (jus contra bellum, or the prohibition on the use of force with very narrow exceptions) and in times of peace, human rights (HR) law is intended to protect humans, forming the trio of IHL—jus contra bellum—HR.
The fields of AWL and animal rights law (AR) do not have a similar triad, but one of Stucki’s tremendous accomplishments in this article is to chart one out, “rethinking AWL through the comparative lens of IHL.” (P. 4.) Stucki proposes the animal law equivalent: AWL—jus animalis contra bellum, or the prohibition on the use of force against animals with very narrow exceptions —peacetime AR. (P. 9.) Stucki goes further to make the most of this comparison. “Jus contra bellum for animals … facilitates a gradual transition from the ubiquitous war on animals to carving out and safeguarding zones of peace, and thereby paves the way for the formation of a more aspirational law of peace.” (Pp. 33-34.)
Stucki then uses the comparison to gain some traction on how “peacetime” AR might still be relevant in “wartime” AWL to counter the idea that AWL and AR should “adhere to a clear-cut division of labor, the former governing exploitative, violent situations and the latter non-exploitative, peaceful relations. However, a comparative look to the relationship of IHL and HR demonstrates that complementarity between antithetical wartime and peacetime regimes is possible.” (P. 37.) HR has been credited with the humanization of IHL. Likewise, “AWL is not a static body of law and thus potentially susceptible to the transformative and humanizing influences of AR.” (P. 41.)
The writing in the article is beautiful and each sentence and paragraph logically flows from one to the next. If you are not familiar with animal law or the laws of war, or if both are new to you, do not let that keep you from reading this article. Stucki carefully takes the reader through difficult terrain, using tangible examples to ensure that her argument is crystal clear. And further, it is not everyday that we have a front row seat to the reframing of a field of inquiry. Don’t miss this one.
