8.1 Introduction
Our contemporary time period is now often referred to as the Anthropocene, a term which denotes that human activity has become the central influence on the planetary environment.Footnote 1 Human influence in this respect is a pressing issue because much of human activity is detrimental to Earth’s climate and environment. Human activities including animal agriculture, deforestation, and burning of fossil fuels contribute to global environmental challenges including climate change, biodiversity loss, and ocean acidification.Footnote 2 If these activities continue at their current pace, the Earth will quickly become uninhabitable for humans and many other animals.
Various legal and policy changes have and continue to be explored as potential solutions to the critical situation of life on Earth. Animal rights discourse, while predating much of this environmental concern, has been proposed as a means by which detrimental human impact on the environment can be mitigated.Footnote 3 While various proposals for legal animal rights exist, they commonly focus on the inherent worth of individual animals and the consequent need to recognise animals as legal rights holders.Footnote 4 Although figures vary, livestock produces approximately 15 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions and contributes significantly to deforestation, biodiversity loss, and environmental pollution.Footnote 5 Recognition of animals as legal rights holders would, by most accounts, require the cessation of intensive animal agriculture.Footnote 6 It would also improve legal protections for other animals with beneficial consequences for habitat protection and biodiversity.Footnote 7
One Health, which refers to a ‘collaborative, multisectoral and transdisciplinary approach’,Footnote 8 with the aim of optimising the health of people, animals, and the environment,Footnote 9 has also been promoted as a policy solution to issues of the Anthropocene. While at its inception One Health was largely focused on public health, contemporary literature has advocated for a broadening of One Health, to extend moral consideration to non-human animals,Footnote 10 and concern beyond health to encompass welfare and rights.Footnote 11 One Health recognises the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health,Footnote 12 thus an approach underpinned by One Health principles should be more likely to limit human activities that are detrimental to the environment.
Animal rights and One Health discourses hold significant promise as potential legal and policy means to combat human activity that is destructive to the environment. While they may appear complementary, however, closer analysis reveals some fundamental tensions between their foundational commitments. Animal rights are premised on the inherent worth of individual animals, which accordingly should not be used – in Kantian terms – as a means to others’ ends.Footnote 13 One Health, in contrast, appears to be focused on the overall health of groups of people, animals, or ecosystems (in other words, on global health or planetary health), at least in practice.Footnote 14 Where individual interests of humans or animals conflict with group interests, One Health will prioritise the group. In essence, animal rights are underpinned by deontological philosophy, while One Health is utilitarian in nature.
To reconcile these promising theories, this chapter seeks to locate a recognition of animal intrinsic worth within the One Health paradigm. In pursuing this objective, it seeks to conceive of animal rights as compatible with and as part of a broader One Health paradigm. In this respect, it draws on literature from compassionate conservation, multispecies justice, and rights of nature that have grappled with similar issues. To ensure the viability and utility of such a conception for legal and policy practice, the chapter explores the theoretical implications of such an approach for contemporary societies and their common uses of animals.
The second part of this chapter commences with an exploration of the ethical foundations of One Health and animal rights to highlight and describe the apparent philosophical tensions between them. In the third part of this chapter, we put forward a way of conceiving of animal rights and One Health as complementary, by developing a three-layered value framework.Footnote 15 We explore the interpretive implications of this value framework for law and governance in the final part of the chapter.
8.2 One Health and Animal Rights: Conflicting Principles?
8.2.1 Ethical Foundations of One Health
The ethical foundations of One Health are highly contested. A key problem is that the framework has multiple definitions/interpretations that are polysemic and can have different ethical and normative consequences. Notwithstanding, some argue that One Health does not have its own ethical framework and does not need one as it relies on existing ethics and principles.Footnote 16 Others argue that One Health can benefit from its own ethical framework,Footnote 17 or that it is a requirement for sound implementation.Footnote 18
While there are some near-universal agreed ethical principles within the framework (collaboration, interdisciplinarity, justice, and/or equity)Footnote 19 a key ongoing debate centres on whether the framework is intended to be anthropocentric, ecocentric, or something else.Footnote 20 While the foundational premise is that public health, environmental health, and animal health are inherently interconnected and should be governed as such, the question remains as to whether environmental and animal health are managed for the benefit of public health, or because of their intrinsic value.
The recent definition of One Health, published by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP), encourages equal consideration of animal, environmental, and human health, at least at face value: ‘One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. It recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent.’Footnote 21 Similarly, the Berlin Principles adapted in 2019, authored by another group of world-leading One Health experts, and updating the 2004 Manhattan Principles, include increased reliance on biodiversity conservation as a means of adhering to a One Health framework.Footnote 22 They also include other principles of equity and justice inherent in the One Health approach.
What we see in the practice of One Health, however, is a very different ethical framework than that which is called for in the literature. At the ground level, One Health remains a public health framework, and so the ideology of the framework remains stuck within that paradigm. This dichotomy between the operationalisation and theory of One Health has also been noted by ethicists. Sironi calls the two approaches the ‘prudent’ and the ‘radical’ approach, with the former representing a forward step for human health and the latter a true epistemological and ethical change, including proper integration of animal value into human societal systems.Footnote 23 Beever and Morar distinguish between the ‘moderate’ and ‘strong’ approaches, with the former prioritising multidisciplinary collaboration and interconnectivity, and the latter focusing on interdisciplinarity and interdependence.Footnote 24 The term ‘interdependence’ implies symbiosis, where each sphere of health takes care of the other. Each of these distinctions bears weight, but not necessarily across each and every iteration of One Health.
This primary debate has very practical implications for how One Health is operationalised. By way of example, managing animals with disease depends very much on the value we place on individual animals, conservation, and public health. Ultimately though, it is generally agreed that the ethics of One Health both in theory and practice remain anthropocentric, despite its promising foundations. Diller and Williamson argue this is because it is premised on the individually focused bioethics,Footnote 25 and Coghlan argues that One Health has yet to expand its circle of moral concern.Footnote 26 Yet even the anthropocentric theory of One Health is not without critique. Lysaght argues that there is an absence of justice, although Johnson and Degeling argue that justice is a developing principle of the framework. Ramakrishnan, and Laine and Morand, argue that the historical coloniality of public health systems has embedded neocoloniality into the framework, and its operationalisation by international organisations.Footnote 27 Indeed, Ramakrishnan goes further to say that the One Health framework is ‘nothing but a vehicle enabling the incorporation of bio-surveillance obligations’.Footnote 28 This is certainly also arguable given the current OHHLEP Theory of Change, where One Health still appears to be primarily focused on animal disease surveillance.Footnote 29
This approach has very real implications for animal rights and welfare. If we view One Health as a way to conduct bio-surveillance, we are only focusing on the detection of the disease and not on the factors that cause the disease or its spread to people. For example, we would focus only on the detection of Hendra in flying foxes, and not protect the natural habitats in forests that feed them and prevent them feeding in human residential areas.Footnote 30 The implications for flying foxes can be dire, as feeding in human areas can lead to net entanglement and lethal management where they can be viewed as ‘pests’.Footnote 31
What we can see is that the ethical foundations of One Health are important in determining the scope of One Health, whether that be One Health as bio-surveillance, a public health framework, or something beyond that considers animals rights and/or welfare, as well as the rights and welfare of nature more generally. The ethical foundations are also vital for providing guidance on resolving the conflicts that are inevitable between the three areas of the framework that we outline below.
Over the remainder of this chapter, we consider One Health frameworks as if they were an embodiment of an expanded ideology advocated for in much of the ethical literature. We ask: if One Health was a true representation of the interdependence of animal, environmental, and human health, how do animal rights fit in? This itself is an interesting question that does not fit the standard debate about the ethical foundations of One Health, because the main competing paradigms are anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, neither of which prioritises animals outside their value as a species. Instead, ecocentrism is based on the ethical framework of ecological holism, espoused by Aldo Leopold and his utilitarian concept of conservation: that what is good for the ecosystem is good for the whole.Footnote 32 This form of ecocentrism allows the dismissal of individual interests if they are detrimental to a hubristic form of ‘the whole’.Footnote 33
Animal interests seem even further removed from a One Health ethical framework, except to the extent that animal disease can cause human health impacts. In practice, animal welfare is considered relevant in managing disease through, for example, the administration of antibiotics and other preventative medicine in agricultural animals. The question of whether intensive and industrial animal agriculture is problematic from the perspective of the animal is not seen as relevant. Coghlan and others argue that One Health operations work within the parameters set by industrial agriculture, through biosecurity laws and policies, and monitoring pathogens. They state that a bolder One Health ethic would recognise that the benefits of industrial agriculture do not outweigh the harm done to the billions of individual animals subject to its operations, in addition to the environmental damage caused as a result of the industry.Footnote 34 Even further removed from the ethical debate are wild animals, although there has recently been some interest in the welfare of wild animals sold in live animal markets.Footnote 35
So, One Health ethics have the potential to promote ecocentricity, but what can we learn regarding the inclusion of animal rights? And how do we fit all three paradigms into One Health law and governance? Philosophy and ethics already have much to offer on how to expand our circle of moral concern to animals, and this is the topic of the following section.
8.2.2 Ethical Foundations of Animal Rights
Traditional ideas about morality focused on the way humans treat other humans. As Deborah Cao, Katrina Sharman, and Steven White identify, this conception of morality was ‘human-centred and human-exclusive’.Footnote 36 According to Cartesian philosophy, for example, other animals are unfeeling automata that ‘eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it; they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing’.Footnote 37 As a result, even vivisection could be considered morally justifiable.Footnote 38 Similarly, while Immanuel Kant expressly rejected the Cartesian view of animals as automata,Footnote 39 he claimed that humans only have indirect duties in relation to animals, on the basis that mistreating animals would harm human moral character.Footnote 40
In contrast, contemporary animal rights discourse ascribes moral status to other animals.Footnote 41 Prominent scholars that argue for animal moral rights,Footnote 42 including Tom Regan and Christine Korsgaard, base their arguments on a conception of other animals as living beings, many of whom have capacities for positive and negative feelings, who have inherent value. According to American philosopher Tom Regan, animals’ inherent worth stems from their individual subjective experience of life. He states, ‘the basic similarity is simply this: we are each of us [human and animal] the experiencing subject of a life, a conscious creature having an individual welfare that has importance to us whatever our usefulness to others’.Footnote 43 Importantly, this value is not dependent on how useful animals are to others; they are not merely a means to human ends, but must – as Korsgaard argues – be treated as ‘ends in themselves’.Footnote 44 From a moral standpoint, this places limits on how human should treat animals, because to treat animals in a way that fails to respect their inherent value is immoral and infringes their individual moral rights.Footnote 45 From an animal rights perspective then, animals possess equal inherent value to humans, and are part of our moral community whose interests require human consideration.
While many animal rights scholars employ deontological theory in their arguments, they reject Kant’s emphasis on rationality and autonomy as the foundation for individual rights and his conclusion that humans only owe indirect duties to animals. In this respect, Regan points out that many animals, such as non-human primates, share the cognitive characteristics that are claimed to give rise to human moral rights and should therefore share those rights.Footnote 46 On the other hand, many humans, including infants and persons experiencing severe mental disability, do not have these mental capacities and yet are recognised moral rights holders.Footnote 47 If rationality and autonomy are the foundations for moral rights, these positions are untenable.
Animal rights scholars suggest alternatives to rationality and autonomy as the foundation for individual moral rights. For Regan, the defining characteristic that gives rise to moral rights is being a ‘subject of a life’.Footnote 48 Similarly, Korsgaard argues that ‘all creatures who are capable of feeling pleasure and pain’ have moral standing.Footnote 49 For some scholars, their theories in this respect serve to provide the foundation for both human and animal moral rights.Footnote 50
The practical consequence of animal moral rights theories for One Health is that animal moral rights cannot be overridden solely on the basis that there might be an overall benefit to people and/or animals.Footnote 51 In contemporary public health practice, for example, the risk of an infectious disease spreading from animals to humans is often used to justify culling the diseased animals and those with whom they have been in contact.Footnote 52 This approach would be unacceptable if proposed in relation to humans, because humans are considered to have inherent value and moral rights. Similarly, if animals are considered to have inherent value and moral rights, their interests would need to be fully considered before deciding how best to respond to the disease threat.
8.2.3 Apparent Philosophical Conflict between One Health and Animal Rights
The philosophical conflict arising within the One Health framework is clear from competing ‘limbs’ of the framework itself; those being environmental, animal, and human health. The philosophical tension here arises from the focus on the macro (conceived holistically as nature as a whole, or the Earth, or conceived systemically as groups of people, other species or ecosystems),Footnote 53 versus a focus on the micro (individuals of all species). Although interdependence is a core principle of One Health, there are, and always will be, circumstances where two or more of these limbs conflict. For example, conservation can impact on human wellbeing when communities are forced to relocate from their traditional lands (known as ‘conservation displacement’).Footnote 54 Individual animals can be killed or relocated if they are viewed as not belonging to a particular ecosystem. Animals can also be killed and mistreated to provide sustenance for human health.Footnote 55
This tension between working towards the optimisation of the wellbeing of a collective versus seeking to protect the individual from pain and suffering can also be seen in the two most prominent approaches to animal advocacy; welfarist and rights approaches. Early supporters of animals, for example, included English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who based his regard for other animals on their ability to feel.Footnote 56 Bentham’s concern with minimising pain and suffering underpinned his utilitarian ethic, reflecting a theory of morality that seeks to maximise happiness and minimise suffering for the greatest possible number of individuals.Footnote 57 Determining the morality of conduct under this approach involves a calculation of all the pleasure and pain that will result from the conduct. This focus on aggregate pleasure, however, can be used to justify practices like experimenting on animals that will cause immense individual suffering. In contrast, animal rights advocates like Regan focus on the inherent worth of the individual and argue for individual rights that cannot be outweighed by aggregate consequences.Footnote 58
Thus, the apparent conflict between animal rights and One Health has echoes both in similar debates of the past and in contemporary conceptualisations of One Health itself. While this makes resolving the apparent conflict challenging, it also means that developing an approach that reconciles the conflict need not require ‘reinventing the wheel’. In the next Part, we look at how similar conflicts have been addressed in compassionate conservation, multi-species justice, and rights of nature literature to develop a conception of animal rights as compatible with and as part of a broader One Health paradigm.
8.3 The Individual in One Health
One Health is, appropriately, the internationally adopted approach to managing public health.Footnote 59 As Degeling et al. identify in the context of responses to emerging infectious diseases, implementing One Health in an integrated and well-thought-out manner necessitates identifying some agreement over what constitutes the public interest and an awareness of the values that support it.Footnote 60 Here, we contend that animal wellbeing is one of these values and should inform any conception of the public interest. In this respect, there is a clear public acceptance of a greater need for animal welfare, at least in modern liberal democracies. For example, a survey conducted in 2023 by BehaviourWorks Australia identified that ‘9 in 10 Australians agree that animal welfare should be protected by the government through legislation’.Footnote 61 A survey undertaken in 2018 found that the Australian public has developed a ‘fundamental … belief that animals are entitled to the protection of relevant rights and freedoms, closely aligning with activist sentiment’.Footnote 62
Ample evidence also exists at the international level for the public acceptance of a greater need for animal welfare. Legal provisions recognising animals as sentient and as having intrinsic worth have proliferated and can be located in jurisdictions as diverse as the European Union,Footnote 63 Tanzania,Footnote 64 Chile,Footnote 65 the Netherlands,Footnote 66 Lithuania,Footnote 67 and Spain.Footnote 68 More broadly, in 2022, the United Nations’ resolution on the animal welfare environment–sustainable development nexusFootnote 69 recognised the key linkages between humans, animals, and environmental wellbeing, and thus accepted that considering animal interests is critical for the realisation of many of the sustainable development goals. Accordingly, the resolution encourages states to consider these key linkages in developing public policy. This public support for increased animal welfare points to the need to conceive of One Health as an approach that encompasses animal wellbeing, which experience and scholarly literature demonstrates is most likely to be achieved through recognition of animal rights.Footnote 70
8.4 Approaches in COMPASSIONATE Conservation, Multispecies Justice, and Rights of Nature
There are several existing ethical theories that could be used to inform a conception of One Health as encompassing animal rights, thus expanding the circle of moral concern for a One Health ethical theory. In this section, we explore the way scholars in compassionate conservation, multispecies justice and rights of nature have approached this challenge.
8.4.1 Compassionate Conservation
The theory of compassionate conservation seeks to mitigate the inherent conflict between the macro ecosystem and micro individual when making conservation decisions. It is premised on the ethical position that ‘all actions taken to protect biodiversity should be guided by compassion for all sentient beings’.Footnote 71 The theory argues against an either/or approach to conservation and individual animal welfare and instead posits that there are win-win solutions where both can be prioritised.Footnote 72 It is specifically contrasted against the apparent subordination of animals in traditional wildlife conservation practices that results from humans believing they have authority over decisions concerning animals and labelling certain animals problematic, thereby ignoring their sentience.Footnote 73
Despite protestations from traditional conservationists, compassionate conservation expands the scope of concern to give conservation a more holistic perspective. It seeks to be inclusive not only of different philosophical thought, but of animals and their intrinsic worth.Footnote 74 An additional major premise of compassionate conservation is that animal agency, and the effects of that agency on ecosystems and other species, is not systematically investigated in conservation research. This idea of agency is established by animals’ intelligence, sentience, social structures, and how they influence ecosystems and human–wildlife spaces.Footnote 75 A study conducted by Wallach and others that researched Australia’s migrant vertebrate species provides insight into the value that a compassionate conservation approach can add.Footnote 76 By adopting a more inclusive approach in their research, specifically an approach that does not solely focus on nativism, they were able to find that migrant species in Australia can act as safeguards for threatened native species.Footnote 77 Even in areas where there are increasing levels of extinction, migrant species have the potential to improve local species richness.
Like compassionate conservation, One Health has been limited by anthropocentric notions of the human–animal relationship. Animal agency is not considered within the One Health research paradigm. If, however, we extended the approach taken in compassionate conservation research to the One Health space, we may be able to move past understanding wildlife and animals as ‘problematic’ in terms of pandemic potential. In this respect, there is some evidence that increased biodiversity leads to less transmission of microbes from animals to people under certain circumstances; however, this research is limited.Footnote 78 It seems the traditional method of conservation research continues to impact One Health research in more than one way.
8.4.2 Multispecies Justice
The idea that humans exist within nature and are interdependent with other living things, embedded in the concept of One Health, is also central to multispecies justice theory. This theory operates to extend environmental justice theory through the inclusion of non-human animals, species, and ecosystems.Footnote 79 This theoretical extension results in an amalgamation of environmental, ecological, and social justice that embraces non-human animals. From a multispecies justice perspective, considering different beings’ subjective experiences of life is critical to multispecies flourishing. A more comprehensive understanding of multispecies justice theory can be seen in Indigenous approaches, whereby respect for all things is required, as ‘disrespect to any part is disrespect to everything’.Footnote 80 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, for example, would ensure that waterholes were kept clear, which maintained water supply for animals and thus contributed to their survival.Footnote 81 This approach clearly aligns with the Indigenous Australians’ law requiring care for country.Footnote 82
A key issue that arises in the application of multispecies justice theory is how to address conflicts of rights and justice that are more prolific in the context of an expanded circle of moral concern.Footnote 83 Nevertheless, there is evidence that individual rights and justice concepts can coexist, at least in some situations. An argument may be made, for example, that justice for sentient animals requires humans not to eat them. However, research is clear as to the human health benefits of a vegetarian diet, thus prohibiting the consumption of animals where plant-based foods are readily available may also work in favour of human justice.Footnote 84 Moreover, such an approach would potentially benefit not only animal and human justice, but also environmental justice, as plant-based foods are more environmentally friendly than animal food products. In this respect, Poore and Nemecek’s study demonstrated that a global transition to predominantly plant-based diets would result in a reduction in deforestation of 76 per cent and a decrease of 49 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions from food production.Footnote 85
8.4.3 Rights of Nature
Rights of nature refers to the conception of nature itself as a subject of rights. The importance of this conception lies in its contrast with traditional views of nature as human property that can be exploited.Footnote 86 In broad terms, while rights of nature ‘have both multiple histories and multiple meanings’,Footnote 87 it ‘propounds the inherent value of Nature, independent of its extractive value for humans, and seeks to give Nature a voice in decision-making structures’.Footnote 88 In this respect, nature is taken to include the holistic conception of nature as a whole, and also nature as specific places (for example, the Whanganui river in New Zealand, or the Mar Menor lagoon in Spain).Footnote 89
While nature would seemingly include animals, it is unclear whether rights of nature encompass animal rights. To understand rights of nature in this way would raise a similar issue to that which arises in compassionate conservation and multispecies justice: how should conflicts between the interests of nature/ecosystems and the interests of individual animals be resolved? Nevertheless, some courts have interpreted holistic forms of rights of nature as inclusive of individual animals. For example, in 2022 the Constitutional Court of Ecuador heard a case in which the release of a woolly monkey named Estrellita from a zoo was sought.Footnote 90 Estrellita had been transferred from her home of 18 years to the zoo on the basis that keeping a wild animal is banned in Ecuador. The Court held that ‘[w]ithin the levels of ecological organization, an animal is a basic unit of ecological organization, and being an element of Nature, it is protected by the rights of Nature and enjoys an inherent individual value’,Footnote 91 thus finding that non-human animals can have legal rights.
To reconcile this apparent ‘[p]hilosophical animosity’, legal scholar Eva Bernet Kempers proposes understanding rights of nature as a ‘three-dimensional concept’.Footnote 92 In this theory, she distinguishes between the holistic, systemic, and individualistic (sentient and non-sentient) dimensions of nature. Bringing the individual and collective into the same conceptual understanding of rights can help to resolve rights conflicts. Bernet Kempers provides some examples in this respect: while animal rights may outweigh plant rights, they also need to be understood in the context of the health of species or ecosystems of which they are a part. This may mean that an endangered plant’s rights could prevail over the rights of a non-native animal whose activities present a risk to the ecosystem. Bernet Kempers notes that while this approach reconciles the apparent philosophical incongruity between individual and collective rights, it also risks ‘naturalizing’ rights, meaning it risks strengthening the natural state in which stronger beings can exploit weaker ones.
8.5 Conceiving of One Health as a Three-Dimensional Framework for Moral Concern
Traditionally, One Health has been conceived of as involving three interconnected aspects: environmental, human, and animal health.Footnote 93 As discussed above, however, this approach raises questions as to the philosophical value of each of these limbs within the One Health approach. Building on the expanded ideology described in Part 8.2 above, and Bernet Kempers’ notion of rights of nature as including animal rights,Footnote 94 we propose that our understanding of One Health be supplemented with a three-dimensional concept for moral concern that embraces individual animal rights (the ‘framework’). In this framework, while nature encompasses humans, other animals, and the environment, it can also be reconceived to better understand tensions between the interests of individuals and collectives. In this respect, the Court in the Estrellita case helpfully sets out the six levels of ecological organisation into which nature may be categorised:
(1) the individual or organism;
(2) populations of the same species living in a particular area;
(3) communities of different species living in an ecosystem;
(4) ecosystems or sets of biological communities in a particular area;
(5) ‘The biome or biotic area, which constitutes all those biogeographical zones into which the biosphere is divided, which are characterized by having common climates and biotic components (animals, vegetation, etc)’; and
(6) nature or the Earth.Footnote 95
For our purposes and building on Bernet Kempers’ theory, this categorisation can be consolidated into three dimensions: individuals, groups, and nature or the whole. To account for the nature of human rights and animal rights as being those rights founded on individual sentience and intrinsic value,Footnote 96 we can further categorise individuals (and to some degree the groups in which they exist) into sentient and non-sentient beings/entities. The resulting framework, adapted from Bernet Kempers’ diagram and drawing on the Constitutional Court of Ecuador’s framework for ecological organisation, is depicted in Figure 8.1.
Figure 8.1 Proposed One Health three-dimensional framework for moral concern
Figure 8.1Long description
Diagram illustrating a proposed One Health three-dimensional framework for moral concern. The framework is structured into three dimensions: the first dimension represents the whole, specifically Earth or nature; the second dimension categorizes groups such as populations, ecosystems, communities, and biomes; the third dimension identifies individuals within these groups, including humans, other sentient animals, and non-sentient animals or entities.
In this framework, value is ascribed to the holistic dimension of the Earth, or nature; the group dimensions of populations, communities, ecosystems, and biomes; and the individual dimensions of humans, other sentient animals, and non-sentient animals or entities. As Bernet Kempers observes, ‘[t]he different dimensions are interdependent: individual entities always exist as embedded in larger networks of collectives and ecosystems, which again exist in the context of the planet (or “nature”)’.Footnote 97 This interconnectedness and interdependence resonates with key principles of One Health and emphasises the need to recognise the inherent value of all dimensions.
This framework can assist in determining how to address conflicts between the interests of humans, other animals, and the environment when taking a One Health approach. Where there is a conflict of interests, a proportional approach should be taken that balances the relevant interests. Individual sentience merits recognition of a particular kind of interest in contrast with non-sentient entities or collectives, and this should be accounted for in this proportional approach.Footnote 98 The approach should include identification of potential risks to different dimensions, consideration of the source or cause of the risk (conceived broadly), consideration of the potential impact and likelihood of occurrence of the risks, and potentialities for prevention and mitigation of risks.Footnote 99 Such an approach brings together aspects of the literature discussed above. Like Bernet Kempers’ framework for Rights of Nature, this framework brings different notions of rights together into one theory. Like compassionate conservation, resolutions within this framework will cease viewing animals as inherently problematic because all dimensions and individuals are recognised as having inherent value and conflict resolution will favour win-win solutions. Like multispecies justice, determinations regarding rights conflicts should be based on broader perspectives of justice.
In her conceptualisation, Bernet Kempers identifies a risk of ‘naturalizing’ rights. We propose that a proper understanding of sentience as sometimes including the capacity to make moral choices operates to negate this risk. Within this framework, humans and other sentient animals are part of nature. As an aspect of their sentience, humans and some other species also have the capacity to make moral choices,Footnote 100 which may include choosing to protect others from harm or not to cause pain and suffering to others. While exploitation of weaker species is certainly a part of the state of nature, making moral choices not to exploit others in this way may also be considered part of the state of nature. This framework embraces human moral choice, which should be factored into determinations regarding conflicts between interests. It is incumbent on humans to try and make moral choices appropriately. In the next part of this chapter, we discuss how this framework can be integrated into law and policy, focusing on the context of zoonotic disease transmission.
8.6 Implementation of the Framework in Law and Policy Relating to Zoonotic Disease Transmission
To envisage how the framework might broaden current One Health approaches to better account for the moral value of animals and the environment, we will consider legal and policy approaches to zoonotic disease transmission, focusing particularly on intensive animal agriculture. Zoonotic disease transmission is a primary context in which the adoption of a One Health approach is advocated.Footnote 101 First, to establish common legal and policy approaches to zoonotic disease transmission, we establish some of the key features of zoonotic disease regulation in the systems of Australia, the United States, and China. These countries are among the biggest producers of farmed animal products globally.Footnote 102 We then examine how the framework could supplement these common legal and policy approaches to better account for the moral value of animals and the environment.
8.6.1 Common Legal and Policy Approaches to Zoonotic Disease Transmission
Most contemporary legal systems are underpinned by anthropocentrism, which is reflected in the legal status of animals as human property.Footnote 103 In anthropocentric legal systems, humans are at the centre of legal concern and other animals’ interests merit only indirect consideration, when they align with human interests.Footnote 104 Intensive animal agriculture can be considered an expression of anthropocentrism, as it utilises farming methods that sacrifice animal welfare concerns in order to maximise production and efficiency.Footnote 105 Legal regulation of zoonotic disease transmission in the context of intensive animal agriculture in Australia, the United States, and China is reflective of anthropocentric attitudes. In each of these countries, animals are legally categorised as property,Footnote 106 and intensive animal agriculture practices are widely employed.Footnote 107
A common approach to ensuring animal welfare in animal agriculture (and more broadly) is to enact legislation that restricts property owners’ rights in relation to their animals. Restrictions might include requirements such as, for example, space allowances for chickens.Footnote 108 Australia,Footnote 109 the United States,Footnote 110 and China,Footnote 111 all have laws that regulate what farmers can do in relation to their animals. Where, however, the interests of animals and productivity concerns misalign, commercial interests are likely to prevail. This is demonstrated through the broad failure of intensive farming systems to allow animals to engage in natural behaviours, like sows’ preference for nesting.Footnote 112 While safeguarding animal welfare in animal farming should help to prevent zoonotic disease transmission, restrictions on intensive farming are generally insufficient to manage the risk of transmission in these contexts, as evidenced by zoonotic disease outbreaks linked to intensive farming methods.Footnote 113
Approaches to regulation for the prevention of zoonotic disease transmission focus primarily on controlling disease rather than addressing ‘the structural drivers of emergence and transmission’.Footnote 114 One common approach is to use surveillance to identify emergent zoonotic diseases. Surveillance includes gathering and interpreting health data. Systems are intended to identify emerging diseases early to limit outbreaks.Footnote 115 Surveillance is ordinarily undertaken at different levels; for example, in Australia at national and state or territory levels.Footnote 116 In Australia, surveillance is supported by the National Health Security Act 2007 (Cth) and responsibilities are shared by the Australian Government Department of Health, the Communicable Diseases Network Australia, and OzFoodNet.Footnote 117 In the United States, federal responsibilities for surveillance activities are shared by the federal Commissioner of Food and Drugs, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (including the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases), and the Secretary of Agriculture (including the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service).Footnote 118 Nevertheless, states have the primary role in surveillance, and there is a strong focus on surveillance in states with high levels of animal agriculture.Footnote 119 In China, human health and veterinary departments are responsible for monitoring zoonotic diseases,Footnote 120 and the Law of Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases governs infectious diseases divided into three classes.Footnote 121
Another common method to prevent the spread of zoonotic disease is biosecurity. This refers to procedures implemented to stop zoonotic disease from being introduced and spread amongst intensively farmed animals.Footnote 122 In these contexts, visiting wildlife are often responsible for the introduction of disease.Footnote 123 In Australia, biosecurity procedures are driven by industry.Footnote 124 In the United States, biosafety, biosecurity, and bio-surveillance are key activities implemented to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease spillover.Footnote 125 Biosecurity is also an important tool for prevention of zoonotic disease spread in China.Footnote 126 Nevertheless, significant obstacles exist to implementing effective biosecurity measures in intensive agricultural facilities. In particular, the scale and intensity of industrialised agriculture generate different and higher disease risks.Footnote 127
Where the spread of zoonotic disease cannot be controlled through surveillance and biosecurity measures, the common approach is to mandate animal culling.Footnote 128 Culling refers to killing diseased or at-risk agricultural animals to stop the spread of disease.Footnote 129 In Australia, the Australian Veterinary Emergency Plan outlines the policies that should be followed where an emergency animal disease is present, including policies requiring killing and disposal of diseased and at-risk animals.Footnote 130 The policy requires that ‘a high standard of euthanasia and respect for the animals is an essential consideration during an EAD response’Footnote 131 where a large number of animals may need to be quickly ‘destroy[ed]’.Footnote 132 In the US, zoonotic disease regulation provides for depopulation or culling, where a disease is identified in an animal population.Footnote 133 The American Veterinary Medical Association provides rules for undertaking mass culling. These include requirements as to appropriate methods.Footnote 134 States also have regulations in place in relation to culling.Footnote 135 In China, compulsory culling is required in relation to farmed animals that are infected by specified diseases.Footnote 136
8.6.2 Integrating the Three-Dimensional Framework for Moral Concern
The framework serves to highlight that humans are not the only stakeholder of moral concern in decisions relating to zoonotic disease transmission. Not only are humans, animals, and the environment interconnected – as acknowledged by the One Health approach – but they also all have moral value (individually and collectively) beyond their economic usefulness to humans. While all three limbs may be impacted by the negative consequences of zoonotic disease spillover in the context of intensive animal agriculture, under current legal and policy frameworks animals disproportionately suffer the worst consequences. Negative impacts for animals include loss of habitat to facilitate animal agriculture, poor welfare for farmed animals, infection, and potential culling (or death).
Changing the paradigm to acknowledge that humans, animals, and the environment are all of moral concern prompts a greater focus on tackling the structural drivers of zoonotic disease. This is because preventing initial spillover will minimise negative consequences for humans, animals, and the environment. The United Nations has identified seven key anthropogenic drivers of zoonotic disease spillover, which include an increasing demand for animal protein and unsustainable agricultural intensification.Footnote 137 Law and policy should be directed towards minimising these drivers. In this context, this would mean implementing laws and policies to reduce demand for animal protein and to shift towards a ‘de-intensification’ of animal agriculture.
In terms of the demand for animal protein, in high-income countries where alternatives to animal proteins are widely available and affordable, policies should encourage consumption of alternative proteins such as pulses rather than animal proteins. Policies could include, for example, removal of subsidies to intensive animal agriculture producers, restrictions or bans on advertising animal products, education initiatives to highlight the benefits of more plant-centric diets and restrictions on inclusion of animal proteins in publicly provided food (e.g. in publicly funded universities, prisons, and the public service). In low and middle-income countries where there are challenges in the availability of alternative proteins, policies should be directed towards increasing availability. Notably, while there is increasing demand for animal protein, ‘the long-term trend for pulses is of sustained consumption levels’.Footnote 138 Law and policy should be directed towards reversing these trends. In relation to ‘de-intensifying’ animal agriculture, legislators need to increase regulation of agricultural operations. Measures could include removing subsidies, use of competition laws to de-concentrate industry, prohibiting additional intensive agricultural farms, requiring intensive animal agricultural operations to internalise the true costs of production including environmental, animal, and human health and welfare costs, removing animal welfare exemptions for farmed animals, and strengthening regulations.Footnote 139
Where a zoonotic disease has emerged, the framework can be drawn upon to modify or at least prompt deep consideration of regulatory responses. Traditional approaches to control zoonotic diseases outbreaks include the culling of livestock and wildlife to limit their movement and their potential interaction with humans and other animals.Footnote 140 However, as Degeling, Lederman, and Rock explain, these approaches are founded on a harm principle that excludes the interests of other animals.Footnote 141 If we judge the appropriateness of regulatory responses on the basis of consequences for the collective (humans and other animals, groups, and the Earth) different conclusions may be drawn. For example, Lederman, Magalhães-Sant’Ana, and Chuan Voo explain how the use of vaccine baits would be more effective in controlling rabies than culling, which remains a mainstream method of disease control.Footnote 142 As a minimum threshold, clear scientific, social, and ethical justification should be required in relation to any decision to cull.Footnote 143
8.7 Conclusion
While One Health is internationally recognised as the optimum approach to the prevention and control of zoonotic disease transmission, in practice it remains confined to anthropocentric considerations of moral value. In this respect, while One Health recognises the interconnectedness of people, animals, and the environment, it does not approach them as having equal moral worth. Instead, as is the case with traditional approaches to public health, humans are considered superior, and where conflict between interests occurs, it is the interests of humans that prevail.
A deeper understanding of One Health, however, mandates that humans are not and should not be the only actors considered to have moral worth.Footnote 144 As Degeling et al. state, ‘[t]o be both ethical and effective, [One Health] approaches might require us to understand health as a universal good that is necessarily shared between species’.Footnote 145 Moreover, to provide a real policy solution to issues of the Anthropocene, One Health must be understood as an expanded ideology in the manner expounded in much of the ethical literature. To further develop this broader understanding of One Health, and to reconcile it with animal rights theory, which also provides a promising pathway towards mitigating the detrimental impact of humans on the Earth, this chapter has sought to demonstrate how a broader conception of One Health can, and should, be conceived of as inclusive of animal rights.
The One Health Three-Dimensional Framework for Moral Concern developed in this chapter is designed to be used as a tool to identify moral relevance in the human and non-human. In ascribing value to the Earth, to groups, and to individuals (human and non-human), the framework recognises interconnectedness and interdependence and emphasises the inherent value of all dimensions. The framework also understands animal rights as compatible with and part of the broader One Health paradigm and can help to determine how to address conflicts between the interests of humans, other animals, and the environment when adopting a One Health approach.
In developing the framework, this chapter has established a method by which to locate recognition of animal inherent worth within the One Health paradigm. Discussion of the potential implementation of this approach in the context of zoonotic disease prevention and control has assisted in demonstrating the theoretical implications of the approach for contemporary societies and their common uses of animals.
