Legal Aspects of Ritual Slaughter - Scope of Regulations

Scope of Regulations

In Western countries, law reaches into every stage of ritual slaughter, from the slaughtering of livestock to the sale of kosher or halal meat.

In the United States, for example, courts have ruled that kosher butchers may be excluded from collective bargaining units, a Jewish beit din (court) may forbid trade with disapproved butchers, retail sellers implicitly stipulate their compliance with rabbinic courts, a state law (NY) may incorporate a rabbinical ruling on kosher labeling, and kashrut symbols may be subject to trade infringement laws.

Due to differences between ritual and mainstream slaughtering practices, kosher slaughter may be exempted from animal welfare laws. For instance, in the United States, the Humane Slaughter Act (7 U.S.C. section 1901) exempts ritual slaughter and this exemption has been upheld as constitutional.

In the United States Religious Slaghter is not practised under any exemption. Instead the Humane Slaughter Act defines religious slaughter by Jews and Muslims as one of two humane methods for killing animals for food, the other being using stunning. The kosher food industry has challenged regulations as an infringement on religious freedom.

Secular governments also have sought to restrict ritual slaughter not intended for food consumption. In the U.S., the most prominent such case is Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. In this case, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unconstitutional a local Florida ban on Santería ritual animal sacrifice.