Ought Sweden to Protect Animals by the Constitution? A Comparative Constitutional Animal Law Study

Around the world, more countries have begun to recognize and protect animals at the constitutional level. In Finland, even a proposal to incorporate fundamental animal rights into the constitution has now been presented by a member of parliament. Yet, in Sweden there is no protection or recognition of animals at the constitutional level, and the legal debate around this subject has in earnest still not even really begun. Considering the neighboring country's proposal for animal rights and the global development with constitutional recognition and protection of animals, it is an important question to analyze whether Sweden ought also to recognize, protect, or grant animals rights in its national constitution and what effects this might have for animals and the law pertaining to animals in the country. This study analyzes that issue through a comparative global outlook at the countries that have included explicit recognition or protection in their constitutions, as well as by looking at the Finnish proposal on animal rights for the highest level of norms. The latter leads to a discussion of the paradigms within Animal Law and explores whether a zoocentric rights perspective is what ought to be adopted within Constitutional Animal Law so that also lower-level legislation and welfare requirements would be relying on animals’ ‘fundamental rights’. As a result of the analysis, the study concludes by presenting proposals of animal rights, protection and recognition that could be applicable for the Swedish constitution.