“Nations Like Unto Yourselves”: An Inquiry into the Status of a General Principle of International Law on Animal Welfare
Summary This article proposes that there is a general principle of international law concerning the humane treatment of animals. Preoccupation with “animal rights” has been associated with Western cultural imperialism masquerading as a universal ethic. Animal welfare is thus an instructive case study of what Jutta Brunnée and Stephen Toope have identified as the key challenge for international law, that of “construct[ing] normative institutions while admitting and upholding the diversity of peoples in international society.” This article applies the framework of interactional international law set out in Brunnée and Toope’s recent book Legitimacy and Legality in International Law, while raising questions about the weight that their analysis accords to practice and their willingness to conclude that widely recognized principles to which states fail to adhere in practice lack legal force. The article also examines how laws prohibiting cruelty to animals have emerged precisely from an interactive cultural exchange between East and West, in particular, between England and India. It concludes that Brunnée and Toope’s framework, although it does not deal at any length with general principles of law (a source of international law in which practice plays a relatively minor role), is nevertheless a useful tool for understanding how a culturally contested principle fits into international law and ultimately supports the view that there is a general principle of international law concerning animal welfare.
A Global Institution on Animal Protection
This work addresses the need for a global public institution in favour of animals. In particular, it focuses on the design of a new international organization on animal protection by taking into consideration three models: the EU Platform on Animal Welfare, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF). Referring to these models, the mandate of the organization on animal protection is drafted, membership and participation criteria are considered, as well as its mechanisms of functioning. The collaboration with other international organizations is foreseen, and common fields of interest are identified. Particular attention is dedicated to the transition towards an economic and sustainability model that considers animals as sentient living beings with fundamental interests in the preservation of their life and dignity, rather than as exploitable resources. In order to address the current global challenges related to animal protection, and progress towards effective universal rights (not only for humans), the creation of a public international institution on animal protection is needed.
La inseguridad jurídica en normas de contratación estatal
It is established by different studies that the issue of government procurement has been marred by several factors, the test objective to publicize these factors, we take as starting point the constant conflict between the branches of government to try and organize this subject; will collect and analyze diverse regulatory and case material in order to achieve evidence and demonstrate the different concepts of constant change that produces excessive regulation of the subject procurement and is in turn causing rapid changes that result in legal uncertainty for our law on the Contract Status.