During the
time from October 5th until 8th 2007 Antoine F. Goetschel and Gieri
Bolliger represented the “Foundation for the Animal in the Law” on the 11th
world congress of the International
Association of Human-Animal Interaction Organization IAHAIO in Tokyo. The convention was
inaugurated by prince Akishino (Fumihito) and caused an overwhelming interest
in the media. More than 1200 participants attended this event.
The IAHAIO world congress takes place every three years and provides an important platform
for experts from all over the world to exchange their acknowledgments in matters
of human-animal relations.
As in former happenings of this
congress, the foundation this year again had the chance to contribute acknowledgements
about the legal issues of this relation.
In line with their workshop happening
under the name of “ Animals in the Law – A Global Perspective – Update 2007”
Antoine F. Goetschel and Gieri Bolliger presented a broad comparative study on
the legal recognition of animals in 18 different national regulations.
The framework already used in Glasgow in 2004 that informs about 18
crucial questions regarding the relation between human beings and animals was
expanded within the last three years to present a very capacious comparison of
those 18 nations to the audience in Tokyo.
Alongside the Swiss Law, the foundation showcased the legal positions of
Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Greece, Denmark, UK,
Canada, USA, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, China, South Africa and New Zealand
to critically compare and review them.
One of the interesting results of this
study is that Switzerland
in some scopes actually does have more animal friendly legal norms than most of
the other investigated countries even though of course also there are still huge shortcomings in terms of the Animal Welfare Law in our home country and a lot of
improvement still needs to be done.
The presentation of the foundation gained
a lot of approval and interest from the international audience. In view of the
next IAHAIO world congress (which will take place in Stockholm in 2010) the foundation considers
expanding the study further by using and also improving the already existing
network of relationships between the different nations.
By working together more closely with the
other nations, the foundation hopes to raise the awareness for the different
national transformations of animal welfare into national law and hopes to
improve the status of the animal in the law by working on stricter legal norms
regarding animal welfare.
The results and a full summary of this study can be viewed here. Please note that despite trying to reflect the legal positions in matters of
animal welfare in the different countries 100 % truthfully, the Foundation for
the Animal in the Law can not take responsilbilty for the correctness of this
information legally.
In line with another workshop named "A
Universal, Natural and Basic Human Right To Have Contact With Animals?"
the foundation’s headman Antoine F. Goetschel provided the groundwork for the
request that all human beings should be able and allowed to keep a pet or at
least be generally allowed to have contact with them. Thereby he could revert
to his acknowledgments that he already gained back in 1989 with the researches
and fabrication of his dissertation about animal welfare and basic rights.
On this years congress the IAHAIO actually
adopted consentaneously a declaration that contains this request as a basic
right worldwide.
Due to the very positive feedback on their
presentation the foundation can proudly maintain that is it is one of the top
institutions regarding animal welfare and has already made some very important
efforts in this subject field - just
like the recent initiative to request an official institution of an animal
lawyer worldwide according to the model of Zurich.
