Toward an animal-inclusive world politics
The Global Animal Advocacy Movement in International Relations
By Steven Tauber
Since the 1990s, activists have extensively mobilized throughout the world to improve the treatment of nonhuman animals. For example, despite opposition from religious groups, organizations have successfully persuaded European governments to ban slaughter techniques that do not stun animals prior to killing them. In 2022, members of the group Direct Action Everywhere made international news by disrupting National Basketball Association playoff games because a team owner brutally killed millions of chickens on his farms to prevent the spread of Avian Flu. Also in 2022, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled that animals possess legal rights, subject to their needs and capacities. For advanced species such as monkeys (the subject of the case), these rights include freedom from being hunted or taken from the wild. Although an Ecuadorian citizen initially filed this case, organizations from the United States and Spain significantly contributed to the litigation campaign.
The captive Orca Tilikum performs at SeaWorld Florida in 2012. Shutterstock.
Despite the Global Animal Advocacy Movement’s extensive work in global politics, IR has essentially ignored it as an area of inquiry. Furthermore, IR’s omission of the Global Animal Advocacy Movement is emblematic of the field’s overall anthropocentrism.
These vignettes describe activities of the Global Animal Advocacy Movement (GAAM), which is a transnational social movement consisting of organizations and activists who seek to improve the well-being of nonhuman animals. A social movement consists of groups and individual activists who share a common political goal and act together to promote that goal. In most cases, social movements seek justice for oppressed people – e.g., civil rights, women’s liberation, LBGTQ+, economic equality, and environmentalism. A Global Social Movement (GSM) is a social movement that transcends national borders, and for the past couple of decades the field of International Relations (IR) has studied global social movements that advocate for peace, decolonization, economic justice, gender equality, and the environment.
Despite the Global Animal Advocacy Movement’s extensive work in global politics, IR has essentially ignored it as an area of inquiry. Furthermore, IR’s omission of the Global Animal Advocacy Movement is emblematic of the field’s overall anthropocentrism that focuses only on human beings and ignores the significance of animals in international affairs. This article argues that emphasizing both the human and nonhuman participants in the Global Animal Advocacy Movement will lead to an “animal-inclusive” IR.
The article first centers on the human actors in the Global Animal Advocacy Movement, and it demonstrates that the Global Animal Advocacy Movement meets the definition of a Global Social Movement. There is a network of activists and groups that transcend national borders and seek to improve the treatment of animals. Furthermore, the Global Animal Advocacy Movement fits the definition because it employs collective protest, including peaceful demonstrations, media campaigns, and lobbying governments. Global Social Movement scholars also consider litigation to be a form of collective protest, and the Global Animal Advocacy Movement extensively litigates. GAAM litigation faces obstacles because most nations’ legal systems, as well as international law, consider animals to be property instead of sentient beings. Nevertheless, as the Ecuador case discussed above shows, there have been groundbreaking successes. Other Global Animal Advocacy Movement activists employ more confrontational actions, such as the aforementioned example of Direct Action Everywhere interrupting NBA playoff games. More radical groups, like the Animal Liberation Front, engage in illegal activities, including harassing animal abusers and bombing facilities that exploit animals.
Finally, the Global Animal Advocacy Movement qualifies as a Global Social Movement because its members share a collective identity, which refers to the communal emotional bond that members of the movement feel because of the oppression they personally experience or concern for others’ oppression. Although many scholars have dismissed animal activist identity as trendy and frivolous, there is unmistakable evidence that GAAM activists connect over their concern for animal well-being. Notably, activists who adopt a vegan diet have made this ethical choice an essential part of their lives and identity.
GAAM litigation faces obstacles because most nations’ legal systems, as well as international law, consider animals to be property instead of sentient beings. Nevertheless, as the Ecuador case shows, there have been groundbreaking successes.
In addition to highlighting the significance of the human participants in the Global Animal Advocacy Movement, this article advances an “animal inclusive” IR by arguing that animals also participate in GAAM. Like the shared identity among human GAAM members, animals and humans can develop a shared identity. Biologists have shown that many animals possess high cognitive and emotional intelligence, and studies have demonstrated that animals have significant abilities to communicate with each other and with humans. Thus, species is not a binary between humans and nonhumans; rather it is a spectrum. Combining this evolving understanding of the relationship between humans and animals with a rejection of anthropocentric assumptions creates the possibilities of a shared identity between human and nonhuman participants.
Furthermore, scholars have recognized that animals engage in political resistance against their human oppressors. History is replete with stories of animals refusing to work, escaping confinement, and even injuring (or killing) their captors. For example, humans captured the orca Tilikum as a calf, confined him to a small pool, and forced him to perform so that Sea World could profit. During his confinement, Tilikum resisted by killing two trainers and another person who trespassed on the Sea World property and went into his tank. Orcas in the wild do not normally assault humans; therefore, Tilikum’s attacks against humans are clearly a product of his captivity. Casual observers, even many GAAM activists, might dismiss these actions as thoughtless, instinctive fits of anger. However, based on our understanding of animals’ advanced intelligence, scholars have reframed animals fighting back against human oppressors as a form of political resistance, comparable to human activists in other social movements.
In conclusion, the IR and GSM fields have ignored or explicitly rejected the inclusion of the Global Animal Advocacy Movement. This article demonstrates that the movement is like other well-recognized progressive Global Social Movements. Additionally, it shows that by rejecting anthropocentric assumptions, scholars and practitioners should recognize that animals are important constituents in the Global Animal Advocacy Movement. In short, accepting the movement in the family of progressive Global Social Movements will impel the field of International Relations in a more animal-inclusive direction.
Steven Tauber is a Professor of Political Science in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies at the University of South Florida. He is the author of Navigating the Jungle: Law, Politics, and the Animal Advocacy Movement (Routledge 2016).
This article is original content published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
