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European Animal Welfare Law Conference in Brussels about "Animal Welfare in Constitutions" 02.02.2007 |
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| On February 1st, an
international meeting about animal welfare law in the European Union and its
member states was held in Brussels. At this occasion, the Foundation for the
Animal in the Law (Stiftung für das Tier im Recht) had the honour of speeking
about the importance of the implementation of animal welfare on a
constitutional level.
The conference with the official title "Constitutional
and Legislative Aspects of Animal Welfare in Europe – The Animal Welfare Action
Plan as a Political and Legislative Challenge" was organised by "Vier
Pfoten International" in Brussel's "Europe-quarter" and
represented a platform for animal welfare law experts of the institutions and
different memberstates of the European Union. The meeting enjoyed a noticable
public interest and was followed as well by exponents of the European
Commission – the most important authoroity for legislation within the EU – and
several members of the European Parliament.
After the official greetingwords of the European Commissair
Markos Kyprianou (Cyprus) the conference was opened by Jo Leinen, a German
member of the European Parliament and important expert in environmental and
constitutional law, with his keynote-speech. This was followed by reports from
of Despina Spanou (cabinet), Dr. Andrea Gavinelli (Animal Welfare Departement)
and Dr. Hinrich Meyer-Gerbaulet on behalf of the European Commission. Further
contributions came from the theologian Dr. Heike Baranzke of the university of
Bonn and different animal welfare law experts, such as Hans-Georg Kluge, David
Bowles (RSPCA), Dr. Maya Neidenova and Dr. Despina Fruth Oprisan. Finally,
Bernhard Kühnle, Director of the German Ministry for Food, Agricuture and
Customer Protection spoke. The conference participants discussed numerous
points, especially aspects of animal welfare law and politics of the Union's
activities and the European Animal Welfare Action Plan (AWAP). For details of the programme of the conference, please click here.
It was a great honour for the Foundation for the Animal in the Law to be
invited as the unique exponent from "outside Europe" – meaning from a
not-memberstate of the Union – and to actively participate in the conference.
Dr. Gieri Bolliger from the foundation, who has written a comprehensive
dissertation about animal welfare legislation in Europe, addressed the
importance of the implementation of animal welfare on a constitutional level in
his speech. He highlighted that only few European countries (Switzerland,
Germany, Austria, Slovenia) have made this step until now. In Switzerland
animal welfare is anchored in the national constitution (Bundesverfassung) and
thereby represents a state goal since 1973 already. Additionally, animal
dignity has equally been garanteed by the Swiss constitution since 1992. With
this constitutional system of animal welfare, Switzerland could be a good
example to other countries and to the European Union. Here is a brief summary
of Dr. Bolliger's speech: Summary
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Further information:
» Vier-Pfoten-Constitutional and legislative Aspects of Animal Welfare |
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