Legal Changes Influenced By The Movement
Regarding the campaign to change the status of animals as property, the animal liberation movement has seen success in several countries. In 1992, Switzerland amended its constitution to recognize animals as beings and not things. However, in 1999 the Swiss constitution was completely rewritten. A decade later, Germany guaranteed rights to animals in a 2002 amendment to its constitution, becoming the first European Union member to do so. The German Civil Code had been amended correspondingly in 1997. The amendment, however, has not had much impact in German legal practice yet.
The greatest success of the animal liberation movement has certainly been the granting of basic rights to five great ape species in New Zealand in 1999. Their use is now forbidden in research, testing or teaching. (It should be noted that the UK government banned experiments on great apes in 1986 ). Some other countries have also banned or severely restricted the use of non-human great apes in research.
Read more about this topic: Animal Rights Movement
Famous quotes containing the words legal, influenced and/or movement:
“If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“Before I put a brush to canvas, I question, Is this mine?... Is it influenced by some idea which I have acquired from some man?... I am trying with all my skill to do a painting that is all of women, as well as all of me.”
—Georgia OKeeffe (18871986)
“The American suffrage movement has been, until very recently, altogether a parlor affair, absolutely detached from the economic needs of the people.”
—Emma Goldman (18691940)