Mexico just put animal welfare into its national constitution

These reforms are a big win for advocates, but what happens next will be crucial for animals rights.

by Sam Delgado
Dec 7, 2024, 6:00 AM CST



President Claudia Sheinbaum a the daily morning briefing at the National Palace on October 14, 2024, in Mexico City, Mexico.
Emiliano Molina/ObturadorMX/Getty Images


On December 2, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum signed a set of constitutional reforms that will pave the way for a comprehensive federal animal welfare law. The changes represent the first-ever mention of nonhuman animals in the Mexican Constitution, marking a milestone achievement for Mexico’s animal rights movement, which has for years been drawing attention to pervasive animal cruelty and extreme confinement in the country’s growing meat industry.

“This is huge,” says Dulce Ramirez, executive director of Animal Equality Mexico and the vice president of Animal Equality’s Latin American operations. These constitutional changes come after two years of campaigning by animal advocacy organizations, including Igauldad Animal Mexico, Humane Society International/Mexico (HSI/Mexico), and Movimiento Consciencia.

These reforms are internationally unique. While national animal protection laws aren’t uncommon, most countries have no mention of animals in their Constitutions. Constitutions are “a reflection of socially where we are,” Angela Fernandez, a law professor at the University of Toronto, told Vox, making any constitutional reform symbolically a big deal.

Beyond Mexico, nine countries include references to animals in their Constitutions, but those mentions have generally been brief and open to interpretation. “Mexico is different,” Kristen Stilt, faculty director at Harvard Law School’s Animal Law and Policy Program, told Vox. “It’s longer, it’s more specific. It’s in several provisions. It’s not just a general statement.”

Plenty of countries have laws against animal mistreatment, including the US, where all 50 states have an anti-cruelty law, but that doesn’t mean they’ve been particularly effective at stopping violence against animals. Part of the problem is that these laws very often exempt farmed animals such as cows, pigs, and chickens, thereby excluding from protection the overwhelming majority of animals that suffer at human hands. That’s where Mexico’s reforms stand out: They’re intended to protect all animals, including farmed animals and other exploited species.

More:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/390144/mexico-constitution-reform-animal-rights