Costa Rica is closing down zoos, Colombia is banning bullfights and Argentina is debating the “Conan Law,” named after President Milei’s dog. What's the state of the debate on animal rights in Latin America?
More and more countries view animals as sentient beings with rights
Originally published on Global Voices
Image by Connectas, used with permission.
Article written by Leonardo Oliva for CONNECTAS. Republished and edited by Global Voices under a media partnership agreement.
Social media platforms like TikTok are full of videos in which users are recreating the film Inside Out 2 with their pets. For these creators, their dogs, cats, rabbits and even goats are smiling, crying, dreaming, getting annoyed, getting depressed… just like human beings, or, more specifically, the teenage protagonist of the successful Pixar film.
These images are quickly going viral, helped by the current situation: caring for animals and respecting their rights is increasingly becoming a focal point for laws and government decisions, in response to a social trend which appears irreversible. This is especially true in Latin America, where much progress has been made in recent times in that respect.
In Colombia, for example, the Congress decided to end bullfighting as of 2028. In Costa Rica, the government has closed state-run zoos. And in Argentina, a law that would impose more severe penalties for animal abuse, named after President Milei’s now-deceased dog, is currently under debate.
All of these cases underline the philosophical and legal argument that animals have feelings, as sentient beings, and, as a result, they have rights. Science also backs this idea: in 2012, a group of neuroscientists signed the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which concluded that humans and other animals share the same connections in our brains which are what give us conscious experiences. In other words, we all have the ability to feel fear, pain or stress.
Laura Velasco, director of the Institute for Animal Rights in Argentina, explains:
Eso cambia nuestra perspectiva en el planeta. O sea, somos una especie más, no somos más la especie dominante.
This changes our perspective on the planet. We are just another species; we are no longer the dominant species.
This would be the scientific foundation for why animals must now be considered non-human subjects with rights.
With regard to legal advances, Velasco highlights concepts such as “perrhijos,” a Spanish term combining “perro” (dog) and “hijos/as” (sons/daughters) which refers to the “multi-species family” made up of humans and dogs, or cats. She also notes that there are laws that take this into account:
Es muy interesante considerar esa conexión con los animales como si fueran un miembro más de la familia, considerando que la familia es un concepto cultural y que cualquier especie puede integrarlo.
It’s very interesting to consider this connection with animals as if they were another member of the family, given that family is a cultural concept and any species could play a part in it.
Oscar Mellado, a criminal lawyer who specialises in the defence of animals, also recognizes progress, but warns of a contradiction: while the law recognises animals as sentient beings, the civil codes still treat them like things. He says:
La doctrina y la jurisprudencia es la que ha hecho un trabajo importante, porque ha podido ‘perforar’ el Código Civil… Ha podido introducir casos muy importantes, empezando por Sandra.
Doctrine and case law have performed important work as they have been able to “penetrate” the Civil Code. They’ve been able to introduce very important cases, starting with Sandra.
He is referring to the orangutan who was officially considered to be a non-human person by the Argentinian justice system in 2014, thus allowing her to leave Buenos Aires Zoo to live in a nature reserve in Florida, United States.
This jurisprudence was a huge leap forward for animal rights. Several Latin American countries have since declared animals to be sentient beings in their constitutions, such as Colombia, Guatemala and Peru. However, in contrast to this, cock fights remain legal in Colombia, as well as in Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Puerto Rico.
Chicken Run is a very popular animated film. While full of funny moments, it tells the story of a group of hens trapped on a farm, under a similar regimen to that of a Nazi concentration camp. Surrounded by barbed wire and forced to lay eggs under the severe gaze of a rough, bad-tempered guardian, they spend their days trying to escape in any way they can.
Is it right to compare the way we treat egg-laying hens (or pigs and cows) with Nazism? That is the question this 2000 film poses, and one that is being asked by more and more people around the world: the food industry treats animals terribly, abusing them and making them suffer as if they were objects. If both science and the law say otherwise, is it time we put an end to these practices? And an even more radical question: do we have to stop eating meat?
Vegans give the most extreme response. They don’t consume any animal products at all: they don’t eat them, wear them, or use animals for entertainment. Like pro-animal rights activist Laura Velasco, they argue that any activity that involves abuse, cruelty or violence against a living thing should be prohibited.
This philosophy is what led to the banning of bullfights in Colombia, a long-standing tradition inherited from Spanish colonial times. Terry Hurtado, a former councilor for the city of Cali, has been leading protests against this practice since 1990. He argues that, in addition to the suffering of the bulls, the horses used during the bullfight suffer too. And while these shows have only been prohibited from 2028 onwards, Hurtado notes that the approved law also includes a request that would ban children from attending as of now. He argues:
La Comisión de los Derechos del Niño de la ONU califica esto como una forma de violencia psicológica.
The United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child classes this as a form of psychological violence.
Hurtado also has another reason for fighting against bullfights:
Es un evento altamente especista, es decir una forma de discriminación basada en un prejuicio moral por razones de especie, que corresponde a esa tradición antropocéntrica en la cual se desprecia y no se valoran las otredades que no sean lo humano.
It is an extremely speciesist event; a form of discrimination based on moral prejudice due to species, corresponding to this anthropocentric tradition in which others are undervalued and mistreated just because they’re not human.
Bullfighting fans meanwhile defend the practice by arguing that these bulls enjoy a privileged life in comparison to those which live on farms and agricultural estates, and noting that they are not always sacrificed in a bullring.
The hippopotamuses in the river Magdalena in Colombia, on the other hand, could be slaughtered. Drug lord Pablo Escobar imported them, and they have since reproduced to such a degree that they are now considered an invasive species. The government has therefore approved a management plan to control their population, angering many animal rights groups.
Activists also focus on industrial meat production. According to them, 117,000 chickens, 3000 pigs, 2600 rabbits and 1100 cows are slaughtered around the world every minute, all destined for supermarket shelves. However, Carlos María Uriarte, former Farming Minister for Uruguay under President Luis Lacalle Pou, defends this industry. He tells CONNECTAS that:
Cualquier sistema de producción de carne obedece a la necesidad de atender el carácter de omnívoro que tiene el ser humano, que se alimenta tanto de carne como de vegetales.
Any meat production system is in line with the need to be true to human beings’ omnivorous nature: we eat both meat and vegetables.
According to data shared by Uriarte, farming is Uruguay’s largest export sector, at USD 3.148 billion in 2023. It also employs some 80,000 people. Uriarte, whose past experience includes livestock production and heading his country’s Rural Association, recognises that the activity “goes against animals’ right to be free,” but highlights that farming production in countries like Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil is less intense because there is widespread access to pastures, making farming “feasible and sustainable.” He notes that on feed lots, “it is common to see the animals looking happy as they have company and food security.”
However, he does recognize that:
…existe maltrato hacia los animales en todas las etapas de la producción de carne que se podrían mejorar. Hay que ver el grado de estrés que los animales, por obvias razones, sufren al llegar a los mataderos.
…animals are mistreated at every stage of meat production and this could be improved. We have to keep an eye on the animals’ stress levels, as they suffer when they reach the abattoirs, for obvious reasons.
For those such as criminal lawyer Mellado, who states that he is “on the way to veganism,” if we “firstly have to kill a living being” in order to eat meat, it is clear that livestock farming should not exist. And while he admits that his beliefs are “harsh,” he maintains that:
…nuestro ideal es que se termine con la explotación animal de todo tipo, ya sea la que va al plato de comida, (…) para el lucro, para el juego, para la diversión, para las competencias… En una palabra: respetar al animal como un ser sintiente y un sujeto de derecho.
The best case scenario is to end animal exploitation of every kind, whether headed to our plates, (…) for profit, for entertainment, for fun, for competitions… To summarise: respecting animals as sentient beings and subjects with rights.
Mellado himself is not a vegan, but according to strict veganism, “carnism” is a cultural behaviour rather than biological as its followers believe. As a result, we can replace the meat in our diets. Even the United States Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics confirms that substituting vegetable proteins for animal proteins is perfectly healthy.
Uriarte disagrees, stating that “meat products will continue to be a very important foodstuff for humanity.” Rather than bans, he believes that the solution is to incorporate concepts such as how animals have the right to a life of dignity into industries like his own. This is something never considered by cowboys or farmers in the past, and definitely not by bullfighters, breeders of fighting cockerels, or circus owners, who used to use animals to entertain millions of people not so long ago.
