‘Humane intervention’: the international protection of animal rights

Abstract

Abstract:This paper explores the international implications of liberal theories which extend justice to sentient animals. In particular, it asks whether they imply that coercive military intervention in a state by external agents to prevent, halt or minimise violations of basic animal rights ('humane intervention') can be justified. In so doing, it employs Simon Caney's theory of humanitarian intervention and applies it to non-human animals. It argues that while humane intervention can be justified in principle, using Caney's assumptions, justifying any particular intervention on behalf of animals is much more difficult -and in present circumstances impossible. If these claims are correct, a number of important conclusions follow. First, all states lack legitimacy because of the horrors that they inflict upon animals. As a result of this, all states are thus prima facie liable to intervention by external agents. To remedy this situation, all states have the responsibility to massively transform their relationship with non-human animals, and to build international institutions to oversee the proper protection of their most basic rights.

Counting Animals in War

“…We will not be drawn on assigning numbers. The heuristics will need to be 21 The same point has been made in explorations of the justice of war on behalf of animals (Cochrane and Cooke 2016;Cochrane 2018: chap. 5;Hadley 2009).…”

“…13 Tony Milligan (2015) identifies them as a near-defining feature of the recent "political turn" in animal ethics. Alasdair Cochrane (2012) offers a particularly comprehensive account, and has begun to explore just-war theory and animals (Cochrane and Cooke 2016;Cochrane 2018: chap. 5).…”

“…Some work has already been done to address the inclusion of animals in relation to those first three concerns. So for example, the question of whether war on behalf of animals could be justified, and who would be able to legitimately fight such a war, has been alluded to by several animal ethicists (Bernstein 2004;Best 2006;Cochrane and Cooke 2016;Cochrane 2018, chap. 5;Hadley 2009)-though it is a topic, we think, avoided by many out 6 This is an author-accepted version of a paper that is forthcoming in/was published in Social Theory and Practice.…”

Almost Like Waging War. Tom Regan and the Conditions for Using Violence for the Sake of Animals

“…As to the legitimate authority condition, we can say that this condition is often unmet by many wars, which are nowadays combated by non-state actors. Moreover, in the case of animals, probably no state can currently satisfy this condition in so far as the exploitation of animals is a widespread practice about which no state can claim to be immune (Cochrane and Cooke 2016). Hence, paradoxically a non-state actor, if it can in some sense wage a sort of war, could probably be more entitled to wage war against others than states are.…”

Linking green militarization and critical military studies

“…Others have examined in depth the moral imperatives or Òjust warÓ rationale for militarized conservation based on the vulnerability of wildlife(Eckersley, 2007;Duffy, 2014;Cochrane & Cooke, 2016).…”