Letico, Vanessa ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4915-4364 (2025) Legal Animal Abuse and Speciesism in Australian Laws Pertaining to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Policy and Law. Lindley, J and Brears, RC, eds. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-31.

Abstract

This chapter critically examines the legal and sociocultural foundations of speciesism in Australian animal protection laws, exposing how culturally entrenched hierarchies of animal worth are codified into legislation. Unlike other forms of discrimination now widely recognized and condemned, speciesism remains deeply legitimized within Australian law, reflecting a capitalist agenda that stratifies animals according to their perceived utility—whether for food, profit, entertainment, research, or companionship. The chapter explores how exemptions within animal welfare statutes create inconsistent protections, selectively applying cruelty laws based on species and purpose, a practice that would be deemed discriminatory if applied to human cohorts. Further, the classification of animals as property, rather than as sentient legal subjects, reframes cruelty against animals as harm against owners, rendering the direct victimization of animals legally invisible. Through a socio-legal victimological lens, this chapter argues that such frameworks enable systemic legal animal abuse to persist unchecked. It concludes by envisioning pathways toward dismantling legal speciesism and considers what a nonspeciesist legal framework could look like in Australia’s future.

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