Which animal rights should be recognised?

Abstract

The paper considers the issue of the possibility to award the fundamental rights to sentient animals. Taking as a starting point contemporary animal protection laws, particularly the ones in which animals are treated as humans co-beings, the latest scientific investigations, which prove irrefutably a sizeable genetic similarity between humans and animals, but also negligible differences in intelligence and capability to communicate between themselves, as well as the change of course in individual contemporary codifications towards disallowing treating animals as things, the author advocates argumentatively for recognising the fundamental rights of animals and thereby their legal personhood. According to the authors understanding, sentient animals should be awarded the fundamental rights corresponding to their interests, needs and species, such as: the right to life; the right to freedom; the right to not have pain, suffering and stress inflicted on them; the right to be cared after by humans; the right to acquire ownership rights; and the right to legal protection.