| 1) Senate Draft Law 351/2015 (Federal Senate) adds determination in the Civil Code so that animals are not considered things, mirroring in the legislation of countries like Switzerland, Germany, Austria and France, admitting that animals, although they are not recognized As natural persons, are not objects or things. However, there is no provision in the draft defining what the new status of animals would be. 32. |
| 2) Senate Draft Law 631/2015 (Federal Senate) proposes the Animal Statute, of which the objectives include combating ill-treatment and all forms of violence, cruelty and neglect towards animal species, recognizing them as sentient beings. Article 4 states that all animals in the national territory shall be protected by the State and have the right to exist in a context of biological and environmental balance, according to the diversity of species, races and individuals. However, the provisions of the legislative proposal only cover animals of the species classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, excluding all non-vertebrate animals from its scope of discrimination. Therefore, its purpose of ensuring and protecting the life and welfare of animals throughout the national territory, set forth in of its Article 1, would be restricted to a certain group of animals 33. |
| 3) Senate Draft Law 650/2015 (Federal Senate) promotes the protection and defense of animal welfare and creates the National System for the Protection and Defense of Animal Welfare (“Sistema Nacional de Proteção e Defesa do Bem-Estar dos Animais”, Sinapra) and the National Council for the Protection and Defense of Animal Welfare (“Conselho Nacional de Proteção e Defesa do Bem-Estar dos Animais”, Conapra). It presents a wording similar to that of Senate Draft Law 631/2015, regarding its objectives, provision on animal rights and animal species covered by the legislation (only phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata) 34. |
| 4) Senate Draft Law 677/2015 (Federal Senate) establishes the Animal Statute, which is designed to ensure the protection and welfare of animal life and applies only to vertebrates. However, it states that the standard can be applied to other animals, without specifying the situations of expansion of its scope. In its justification there is the recognition that animals are beings endowed with sensitivity and that their life and dignity are values that our society recognizes in its entirety 35. |
| 5) Draft Law 215/2007 (Chamber of Representatives) establishes the Federal Code of Animal Welfare (“Código Federal de Bem-Estar Animal”), establishing guidelines and standards to guarantee compliance with the principles of animal welfare in animal control, animal experimentation and animal production. Its primary objectives are to reduce and eliminate animal suffering, to defend animal rights and to promote animal welfare. In the meantime, there is no definition of what animal rights would be or whether animals would be entitled to rights, stating in its justification that Animal Welfare norms can not contain restrictions that make production or economics unfeasible, nor to dissociate from a scientific basis or to be based on anthropomorphic standards, making its anthropocentric bias explicit 36. |
| 6) Draft Law 2,156/2011 (Chamber of Representatives) provides for the National Code for the Protection of Animals (Código Nacional de Proteção aos Animais), listing a series of prohibited practices that violate the integrity of animals (such as physical aggression, exorbitant work, failure to provide quick and painless death for animals slaughtered for consumption, etc.). However, it is not clear whether the animals would be subjects of the law, justifying the proposition because animals are capable of experiencing many of the feelings that we ourselves experience (...), imposing on us the moral and ethical duty to avoid the suffering of these other beings 37. |
| 7) Draft Law 3,676 / 2012 (House of Representatives) elaborates the Statute of the Animals and declares that animals are sentient beings, subjects of natural rights and are born equal before life. It defines the fundamental rights of animals: respect for existence, dignified treatment, shelter, veterinary care and work in non-degrading conditions. It presents the definition of animal as every irrational living being, endowed with sensibility and movement 38. |
| 8) Draft Law 6,799/2013 (Chamber of Representatives) proposes that domestic and wild animals have a sui generis legal nature, being subject to depersonalized rights, from which they can enjoy and obtain judicial protection in case of violation, and their treatment as things is forbidden. In its justification it argues that animals are sentient, but it also does not define or characterize the proposed new legal nature 39. |
| 9) Draft Law 7,991/2014 (Chamber of representatives) attributes sui generis legal personality to animals (without defining it), making them subjects of fundamental rights (listed as right to food, physical integrity, freedom, among others), in recognition of their sentience 40. |
