Rethinking the Legal Status of Animals: From Welfare Paradigm to Structural Reform
Over the past decades, animal protection laws have increased, yet the law continues to permit widespread exploitation of animals. This inconsistency reveals a deeper structural failure – one that calls for rethinking the very foundations of how animals are treated in law.
The legal system has traditionally been structured to serve human interests. This anthropocentric orientation is embedded in the selection of regulatory goals, resulting in a legal framework where the interests of non-human animals are considered only when they align with human benefit.
Although legal recognition of animal sentience has increased, the prevailing legal paradigm continues to permit animal use across sectors such as food production, research, and entertainment. This reflects a structural paradox: under EU law, animals are simultaneously defined as sentient beings and agricultural products in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Articles 13 and 38 TFEU, respectively). This paradox is reflected in national legal systems, where animals are classified as property, while legislation acknowledges their capacity to suffer.
Animal protection laws are now more numerous than ever, but they remain rooted in the welfare paradigm, which regulates harm without prohibiting it. The use of animals is legally permissible so long as “unnecessary” suffering is avoided, a standard that remains vague and easily subordinated to human interests. The law does not assess whether the use of animals is necessary, nor does it limit the number of animals used. Animals may be used in virtually unlimited numbers, provided certain minimum conditions are met. As a result, the welfare paradigm legitimizes, rather than challenges, the exploitation of non-human animals.
Ultimately, the core issue in animal protection is not the absence of laws, but the legal and moral framework in which they operate. Moreover, the legal marginalization of animals has broader implications. Industrial animal use, particularly in the food sector, contributes significantly to biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and climate change. Thus, strengthening the legal status of animals could support the protection of environmental conditions that sustain human life on Earth.
Meaningful animal protection requires elevating animal interests to constitutionally recognized legal values that can be weighed against competing human economic interests. Only then can the law begin to reflect a more just and ecologically responsible relationship between humans and other animals. Embedding animal protection in the constitution is a necessary structural reform to reflect the evolving ethical and ecological realities of our time.
Several European countries – Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium – have already incorporated animal protection into their constitutions. However, these general constitutional provisions have not significantly challenged prevailing economic rights, which underscores the need for explicit and enforceable fundamental rights for animals. In Finland, the Constitutional Law Committee has noted that the Finnish Parliament has the authority to grant animals rights and that EU Member States are committed to paying full attention to animal welfare (Article 13 TFEU), and stated that this obligation should be considered when evaluating constitutional reform (PeVL 106/2022 vp).
Venla Mathlein
Venla Mathlein is a doctoral researcher at the University of Turku. Her research focuses on the legal status of animals and the intersections of animal protection and consumer law.
