Animal Law in France: Positive law, prospective law and learning the law of the living

Abstract

In the Anthropocene era, humans have become the main force of change (not to say constraint) on the Earth’s evolution. At the very least, our relationship with living things needs to be rethought, and the law could be the best vehicle for such reflections. For our part, we believe that legal anthropocentrism is currently being undermined, and that we are at the beginning of a movement that will grow and develop in the future, particularly in view of the current advances in zoocentrism and biocentrism, with rights granted to animals and/or (elements of) Nature. Our contribution will focus more specifically on animal law in France, where we’ll be looking at positive law texts, some of which we’ll include in the work on legal personality, a French university research program and a major issue for the protection of animals and all natural entities.