By Kashmir Hassan (adapted for AnimalLaw.ie)
Animals are widely recognised as sentient beings capable of feeling pain, fear, and distress. However, in law and in society, they are rarely treated as victims. Most legal systems, including Ireland’s, still approach harm through a human-centred lens where animals are classified as property rather than individuals with interests and needs of their own.
This creates a fundamental problem: if animals are not seen as victims, the harms they suffer are often minimised, ignored or reframed as secondary to human concerns.
Animals as Property, Not Victims
Despite growing awareness of animal welfare, the law continues to treat animals as objects. Laws protecting animals typically focus on preventing “unnecessary suffering” or conserving certain species but these standards are selective and narrow, often shaped by human economic interests. For instance, the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013 only protects animals that are in possession or control of humans through farming, sporting or domestic purposes. The act fails to protect animals within lawful fishing or hunting practices as well as hares lawfully hunted or coursed.
This means that:
- Animal cruelty laws are often underenforced and underresourced.
- Harm to animals is frequently justified as a by-product of farming, industrial developments or other human activities.
- Courts likely prioritise the impact of penalties on offenders over the suffering of animals e.g. losing livelihood, companionship, etc.
Even in serious cruelty cases, penalties can be surprisingly lenient. Offenders may receive minimal sanctions, avoid criminal records or even be allowed to continue owning animals, including those they have harmed.
[1] Serrin Rutledge-Prior, ‘Invisible Victims, Invisible Crimes: Institutional Erasures of Animals as Victims of Cruelty’ (2026) 48 Law & Policy e70013 https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.70013 accessed 17 March 2026, 2; Margot Michel, ‘Moving Away from Thinghood in Law: Animals as a New Legal Category?’ [2023] LEOH – Journal of Animal Law, Ethics and One Health 29 https://doi.org/10.58590/leoh.2023.003 accessed 16 March 2026, 31. [2] Marina Lostal, ‘De-Objectifying Animals: Could They Qualify as Victims before the International Criminal Court?’ (2021) 19 Journal of International Criminal Justice 583 https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqab039 accessed 16 March 2026.
What Counts as Animal Harm?
Animal harm is underreported and underresearched. Much of it takes place behind closed doors on farms, in private homes or within industries where using animals as mere objects is normalised.
Because of this lack of visibility, the public often underestimates:
- How common animal abuse is
- The severity of harm involved
- The systemic factors that allow it to continue [7]
This invisibility reinforces a cycle where animal suffering is both widespread and overlooked.
[3] Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013; Animal Law Ireland, ‘Animal Cruelty, Neglect and Welfare’ (16 December 2023) https://animallaw.ie/types-of-crime/animal-cruelty-and-neglect/ accessed 11 June 2026. [4] Rutledge-Prior (n 1) 5-6. [5] Rutledge-Prior (n 1). [6] Rutledge-Prior (n 1) 3-4. [7] Rutledge-Prior (n 1) 3.
Animal Ownership Over Animal Welfare
Legal responses to animal cruelty often reveal a troubling pattern: harm is treated more like damage to property than violence against a sentient being.
Research shows that:
- People who harm animals they do not own are often punished more harshly than those who abuse their own animals.
- Cases involving the death of an animal do not always result in stronger penalties than cases where the animal survives.
This suggests that the law is more concerned with ownership rights than with the intrinsic value of animal life.
Not All Animals Are Equal in Law and Culture
Another major issue is hierarchical speciesism: the idea that some animals matter more than others. [9]
In legal and social terms:
- Companion animals (like dogs) receive stronger protection.
- Farmed animals are treated as commodities.
- Wildlife labelled as “pests” may receive little to no protection.
For example, harming a dog is likely to attract greater penalties than harming a rabbit, reflecting social biases rather than consistent ethical standards. [10]
[8] Rutledge-Prior (n 1) 5-8. [9] Melanie Flynn and Matthew Hall, ‘The Case for a Victimology of Nonhuman Animal Harms’ (2017) 20 Contemporary Justice Review 299 https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580.2017.1348898 accessed 16 March 2026, 307. [10] ibid; Rutledge-Prior (n 1) 7-8.
The Link Between Animal Abuse and Domestic Violence
Animal harm is not isolated; It is often connected to violence against humans.
Studies show that animal abuse occurs in up to 70% of domestic violence cases. This is known as “the Link”. Abusers may harm or threaten pets to control or intimidate victims.
This creates serious consequences. Victims may delay leaving abusive situations out of fear for their animals and animals themselves suffer direct physical and psychological harm.
Despite this, legal safeguards often fail to include animals. Many domestic violence orders do not cover pets and few shelters can accommodate them. As a result, animal victims remain largely invisible even in systems designed to protect the vulnerable.
Invisible Victims of Environmental Harm
Animals are also overlooked in environmental crimes such as pollution, illegal dumping, and industrial disasters.
For example: the 1984 Bhopal gas leak in India. While thousands of human deaths were documented and studied, thousands of animal deaths were largely ignored or treated as secondary evidence of human risk.
This pattern continues today.
Environmental harm is primarily assessed in terms of its impact on humans. Habitat destruction and fish kills caused by discharge are typically prosecuted only where it significantly affects human communities, explaining the low accountability for such harms. In fact, habitat destruction is framed as a human issue (e.g., economic loss, tourism decrease) rather than direct harm to animal groups.
While animal deaths are often noted, they are rarely central to legal or policy responses.
[11] Lyla Coorey and Carl Coorey-Ewings, ‘Animal Victims of Domestic and Family Violence: Raising Youth Awareness’ (2018) 7 1. [12] ibid; Michelle Cleary and others, ‘Animal Abuse in the Context of Adult Intimate Partner Violence: A Systematic Review’ (2021) 61 Aggression and Violent Behavior 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2021.101676 [1324] Flynn and Hall (n 8) 306; Walters (n 6) 145; Chandana Mathur and Ward Morehouse, ‘Twice Poisoned Bhopal: Notes on the Continuing Aftermath of the World’s Worst Industrial Disaster’ (2002) 62 International Labor and Working-Class History 69 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547902000224 accessed 21 March 2026, 70.
Rethinking Animals as Victims
If animals are to be meaningfully protected, they need to be recognised by the law as victims, not just as property or extensions of human interests.
Legal scholars have proposed several changes:
- Treat animals as legal subjects rather than objects. [16]
- Improve research and public reporting on animal harm.
- Extend victim protections to include animals
- Ruby’s Law campaign, originating in the UK, recently launched in Ireland aiming to give animals legal protection in domestic abuse cases – see here. [17]
Some more ambitious ideas include allowing animals to:
- Be represented in legal proceedings
- Have their experiences reflected in “victim impact statements”
- Access legal remedies through human representatives
While these proposals may seem ambitious, they reflect a growing recognition that current systems fall short.
[14] Caroline O’Doherty, ‘Habitat Destruction in Ireland Almost Doubles without Any Increase in Prosecutions’ (The Irish Times) https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/2026/06/09/reports-of-wildlife-crime-double-but-prosecutions-stay-low/ accessed 08 June 2026; Caroline O’Doherty, ‘Louth River Incident Is One of Ireland’s Worst Fish Kills on Record’ (The Irish Times) https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/2026/06/04/more-than-20000-fish-feared-killed-in-pollution-incident-in-co-louth-river/ accessed 08 June 2026. [15] Reece Walters, ‘Air Pollution and Invisible Violence’ in Pamela Davies, Peter Francis and Tanya Wyatt (eds), Invisible Crimes and Social Harms (Palgrave Macmillan UK 2014) https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137347824_8 accessed 21 March 2026. [16] Lostal (n 2). [17] Christina Warner, ‘Ruby’s Law – Protect Pets In Households With Domestic Abuse’ https://www.rubyslaw.co.uk/ accessed 11 June 2026.
See What Has Been Ignored
At its core, the issue is one of perception. As long as animals are viewed primarily as mere property, their suffering will remain secondary.
Recognising animals as victims does not require treating them exactly like humans. However, it does require acknowledging a simple reality: they can suffer, they can be harmed and those harms deserve to be taken seriously.
Canadian courts have recognised that animals can experience emotional harms, absent of physical violence. Until other jurisdictions can follow suit, animals will continue to be silent and overlooked victims of harm.
[18] Lostal (n 2) 609, 35Alastair Macbeath and Amanda Whitfort, ‘Species Impact Statements: Giving a Voice to the Unheard Victims of Environmental Crime’ (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, 2024) https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/species-victim-impact-statements-envitonmental-crime/ accessed 21 March 2026. [19] R v Hague, 2015 BCPC 237363-1.
