MODERN FOUNDATIONS OF CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY: ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES, CRIMINAL-LAW PROTECTION AND PHILOSOPHICAL PARADIGMS
Keywords:
animal cruelty, animal welfare, criminalisation, environmental crime, biodiversity, anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, criminal-law protectionAbstract
This article examines animal cruelty not merely as an offence against public morality or property interests, but as a multi-layered object of criminal-law protection involving the independent interest of a sentient living being in avoiding unjustified suffering, society's interest in limiting violence and, in relevant cases, the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem stability. Anthropocentric, biocentric and ecocentric approaches are compared. Article 202¹ of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan and Article 111 of the Code of Administrative Liability are analysed against the laws of Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Switzerland and the United States. The article argues that the most serious forms of cruelty should attract criminal liability regardless of a prior administrative sanction and proposes a differentiated system of qualifying circumstances.
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