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Chinese animal protection laws and the globalisation of welfare norms1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2016

Yangzi Sima  and
Siobhan O'Sullivan
Yangzi Sima*
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia. Email: [email protected]
Siobhan O'Sullivan
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Australia. Email: [email protected]
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper examines China's emerging animal anti-cruelty law and the extent to which it meets established animal welfare norms or not. Features that render the draft laws distinctly Chinese include the restrictive interpretation of cruelty as deliberate abuse, stringent pet control stipulations, and compromises on the consumption of dogs and cats. Meanwhile, the draft laws also reflect the Western experience. Animals are categorised according to their use; the ‘unnecessary suffering’ concept is the central philosophical tenet; and the enactment of the law will certainly result from strategic, pragmatic compromise. We conclude that 200 years of animal protection policy-making, the involvement of policy elites in drafting the Chinese laws, and the globalisation of trade, have made it difficult for China to do anything other than develop an animal protection regime broadly consistent with what exists in the West, although some unique Chinese features can also be identified in the proposed laws.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

1

The authors would like to thank the Human Rights and Animal Ethics (HRAE) Research Network at the University of Melbourne for a small amount of funding to assist with this paper. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful feedback.

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