Global Advancements in Animal Rights: Efforts to Strengthen Animal-People Cruelty Laws, Part 1 of Multiple Part Series

Throughout history, animal-people rights advocates and lawmakers have fought passionately for the justice of animal-individuals. “An immediate priority is to update EU Animal Welfare legislation to reflect current scientific understandings of the welfare of farm animals and include all animals kept for economic purposes.” “Lastly, the EU policy making should promote the transition to a more plant-based diet to mitigate the environmental and climate impacts of intensive animal agriculture.” To fulfill its post-Brexit political and ethical commitments, the United Kingdom introduced the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill in 2021. “Now there is a bill going through the UK parliament that will recognize in law for the first time that animals have feelings, pain, pleasure, fear, maybe affection, trust, betrayal. This could lead to a broader definition of animal cruelty covering a wide range of species including invertebrates for instance, increasing the penalties for it.” “I think you would agree with me that every living being has a right to live their lives, free from harm, free from being tortured, free from being killed.”

Israel was hailed as the first country to ban the sale of fur. “The fur industry causes the deaths of hundreds of millions of animals worldwide, and inflicts indescribable cruelty and suffering. Signing these regulations will make the Israeli fashion market more environmentally friendly and far kinder to animals.” Twenty-eight countries worldwide, including 19 European nations, have banned fur. One statistic says it all: 95% of all new drugs that are deemed safe and effective in animal-person tests fail in human trials. Today, compassionate lawmakers of 45 countries have taken up the momentum and banned cosmetics testing on animal-people. The Indian government passed an amendment to the New Drugs and Clinical Trial Rules in 2023, taking the lead in freeing animal-people from research use, especially in drug testing. There is growing hope that scientific research will soon be entirely cruelty-free.