Letowska Ewa
Polnische Akademie der Wissenschaften, PL-Warschau.
ALTEX. 1997;14(1):3-7.
The three central issues in the present discussion about animal protection are a) the de-reification of animals, b) the demand for special animal rights, and c) the conflict between the animal-interests and certain human rights. In some countries it is already written into law that animals are no things. But there, the interpretation of such law is finally shifted over to an individual judge who has to decide in each case according to civil law if such a "legal object" is an animal. In the case where animals are supposed to have their own rights frequently the misunderstanding asks that thereby they are being "personified", i.e. that they are supported to attain the status of a legal subject. However, animals need no personification. The issue here is to provide them with a status of material legality. On several levels, basic human rights collide with the interests of animals, namely in the freedom of research and teaching, in the freedom of practice religion and art, in the right of personal expression and within property laws. Most of the human rights conflicting with the demands of animal protection are not absolute in character, which means that they are to be restricted by law, even the basic constitutional law can be altered. The assessment remains in how far the democratic societies of Europe are prepared to make restrictions within such fundamental laws. Only to this extent can restrictive measures with respect to animal treatment not be valued as a violation of human rights.
a) 动物的去物化；b) 对动物特殊权利的诉求；c) 动物利益与某些人权之间的冲突。在一些国家，动物不是物品已被写入法律。但在这些国家，此类法律的解释最终交由个体法官，法官必须在每个案件中根据民法判定这样一个“法律客体”是否为动物。在动物应拥有自身权利的情况下，常常存在误解，认为这意味着它们被“人格化”了，即它们被支持获得法律主体的地位。然而，动物无需人格化。这里的问题是赋予它们物质合法性的地位。在几个层面上，基本人权与动物利益存在冲突，即在研究与教学自由、宗教与艺术实践自由、个人表达权以及财产法方面。大多数与动物保护诉求相冲突的人权并非绝对的，这意味着它们可依法受到限制，甚至基本宪法也可被修改。关键在于欧洲的民主社会准备在多大程度上对这些基本法律进行限制。只有在此范围内，关于动物对待的限制措施才不会被视为侵犯人权。
