S1E7: Animal Warfare Law with Saskia Stucki

"“The comparison with the Law of War acutely spotlights and puts into proportion the scale and intensity of instrumental violence sanctioned by Animal Welfare Law. Whereas International Humanitarian Law is fundamentally based on a distinction between combatants and civilians and designates combatants as the only lawful targets of intentional injuring and killing. A comparable principle distinction is lacking in Animal Welfare Law. All animals are the lawful targets of instrumental violence. It is worth pausing over this disparity. It signifies that Animal Welfare Law indiscriminately exposes mostly docile, helpless, passive animals to this same quality of violence that International Humanitarian Law firmly reserves for combatants who are actively engaged in armed hostilities. Put differently, in terms of the heightened level of legally allowed violence the treatment Animal Welfare Law accords to exploited animals resembles the treatment that International Humanitarian Law accords to enemy combatants . Potentially and tellingly the law thus treats animals , who are more like civilians in terms of their non-involvement in any hostilities like putative or quasi combatants" (Saskia Stucki).