International Legal Protection of Animals: Problems and Prospects

INTRODUCTION. The purpose of this work is to identify the main problems of modern international legal protection of animals and the theoretical justification of the need to change their legal status (regime). The main task of the research is to study modern concepts that have already become the basis of international legal acts for the protection of various categories of animals, as well as ideas that have sufficient potential to lay the foundation for a more conscious attitude to other biological species. Furthermore, the research highlights significant shortcomings of the global legal policy on animal protection, which hinder the achievement of the main goals of international cooperation in this area. The research also suggests new approaches that can solve both ethical and environmental problems of human-animal relationships in the very near future. In addition, this scientific work provides various philosophical and legal arguments that confirm the need to assign a special legal status to animals.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The research examines the doctrinal positions of mainly foreign researchers and legal experts dealing with the problems of international legal protection of animals. This study uses the norms of some international legal agreements of a global and regional nature, as well as the provisions of recommendation documents. The research used general theoretical (analysis, synthesis, comparison, induction, deduction, abstraction, generalization, idealization, analogy, modeling, concretization, logical, systematic and comparative approaches) and special legal methods (historical-legal, formal-legal and the method of legal forecasting).RESEARCH RESULTS. Based on the results of the study, the author identifies the main problems of international legal regulation of relations on the conservation of biodiversity in the framework of the implementation of the concepts of environmental protection and sustainable development. In addition, the study highlights the most important achievements and significant gaps in the EU's legal policy on animal welfare. Through the synthesis and generalization of the main provisions of the concept of well-being and the concept of animal rights, this scientific work forms an idea of the most successful model of international legal protection of animals. Based on the obtained result, the study predicts the inevitable change in their legal status (regime) and the revision of the existing anthropocentric paradigm of modern legal science.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The vast majority of existing international legal agreements on the protection and use of animals protect the secondary interests of modern consumer society, where animals have a rank based on their usefulness, without taking into account their immanent value. If the trends of recent decades continue, the environmental goals set by international environmental law will remain unattainable. In order to solve a layer of ethical and environmental problems, it is necessary to abandon the anthropocentric approach, which permeates the entire system of international law, in favor of a more perfect organization of human relations with nature (for example, in favor of anthropocosmocentrism, cosmocentrism, biocentrism, etc.). In addition, the identification of animals with property does not correspond to modern ideas about them as sentient beings. It is unacceptable to treat them as «things» within the framework of national legal systems and international law. Regardless of whether they will have legal capacity or will lead a new, specific category of persons, animals must have a certain set of international legal guarantees