Animals in the constitutional state

While many constitutions refer to animals as resources or symbols, in recent years a distinct form of constitutional provision has emerged, treating the interests of individual animals as matters of intrinsic constitutional concern. The countries with such provisions are Switzerland (as of 1973), India (1976), Brazil (1988), Slovenia (1991), Germany (2002), Luxembourg (2007), Austria (2013), and Egypt (2014). The enactment histories, texts, and interpretations in these diverse jurisdictions are highly local, but this article suggests that these provisions can and should be identified as a distinct and novel category of constitutional provision insofar as they each seek to directly protect animal interests. This article demonstrates that the emergence of these novel constitutional animal protection provisions represents a significant disconnect from prevailing theories of constitutionalism, which generally place the dignity and democratic self-assertion of human subjects at their center. This article explores this tension between constitutional animal protection and prevailing theories of constitutionalism and proposes a supplementary account of constitutional theory that embraces the state's obligation to attend to the interests of its most vulnerable members-even, and perhaps especially, where those members are incapable of constitutional self-assertion. This analysis offers a way of seeing constitutional animal protection as continuous with existing constitutional values, while also attending to the unique harms and politics of contemporary animal exploitation.