Research On Chinese Animal Protection Legislation

Harmonious relationship between human and animals is extremely essential to both survivals. Nowadays, animal is unique in the diversity and importance of the needs of human it fills. The so called advanced specie depends largely on the use of animals, including but not limited in food, clothing, enjoyment and even health caring. Most importantly, human being is controlling their time, aggrandizing their suffering and depriving their lives even without their consent. Therefore, there is an ancient and profound topic that whether people in treating animals should have moral obligation to some extent.Western countries became aware of this problem earlier. In recent centuries scientists were the first to study natural law behind this issue, then philosophers have proposed different theories of moral, and then jurists began to convert moral obligation into law in practice. In this sense, the Western countries gradually formed animal ethics and animal protection law disciplines. It is believed that the concept of animal protection and animal welfare in its modern sense, even repositioning of relationship between people and animals has began in the West.Only recently China started to pay attention to the topic of relationship between man and animal, and whether humans have obligation to kindly treat the animals. China has yet not formed a system of animal protection law in the modern sense. China has no comprehensive animal protection legal system until now even there are only few laws and regulations that are related to animal protection. China’s laws and regulations concerning the protection of animals mostly focus on management of animals’ usage, however, which are still roughly general, and rarely applicable.Referring to the different country’s animal-related laws, "Animal Protection Law" (Experts’Draft Proposal) and "Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Law" (Experts’Draft Proposal) by professor Chang Jiwen, and other literatures related to animal protection by professor Sun Jiang, the author came up with a conclusion that China could develop Animal Protection Basic Law on the basis of already existing animal protection laws to improve animal protection in China. Since China already has Wildlife Protection Law, the author suggested that the scope of animals under the Animal Protection Basic Law should be limited to non-wild animals, namely domesticated animals, and establish brief provisions which would manage animals separately according to their classification.