Redefining Democracy: How Constitutional Law Could Embrace All Sentient Life

In a groundbreaking episode of The Animal Law Podcast, we explored radical new concepts that could fundamentally transform how constitutional law treats animals. Host Mariann Sullivan welcomed Cambridge University’s Raffael Fasel and Queen Mary University’s John Adenitire to discuss their book “Animals and the Constitution: Towards Sentience-Based Constitutionalism” – a work that challenges centuries of legal tradition by proposing constitutional frameworks that recognize the inherent worth of all sentient beings.

While traditional constitutions rely on the “hypothetical consent of the governed,” this revolutionary approach acknowledges that billions of sentient beings are governed by constitutional systems but have no voice in shaping them. The authors argue for a dramatic shift from anthropocentric legal structures to ones that provide “due concern” for all creatures capable of experiencing pain, pleasure, and complex emotions.

Key Discussion Points:

• The historical evolution of constitutionalism from divine right monarchy to modern democratic systems
• Why sentience, rather than rationality or autonomy, should be the foundation for constitutional worth
• How existing animal welfare protections in constitutions worldwide fall short of true recognition
• The application of proportionality principles when animal and human interests conflict
• Practical challenges of implementing constitutional rights for domesticated and wild animals
• The role of micro-boards and participatory democracy in determining animal interests
• Real-world examples from Ecuador’s rights of nature to Switzerland’s animal dignity provisions
• Why this “realistic utopia” framework offers hope for incremental progress toward comprehensive animal rights

This episode challenges listeners to reconsider fundamental assumptions about law, democracy, and moral consideration – making complex constitutional theory accessible to animal advocates seeking systemic change.

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Dr John Olusegun Adenitire is a Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, School of Law and a Co-Director of the Forum on Decentering the Human, an inter-disciplinary research centre. He completed his PhD in Law at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. He has held visiting research fellowships at Yale, Oxford, New York University, and Fordham University. He has published extensively on constitutional rights, discrimination law and theory, and animal rights. He teaches animal rights law, public law, legal philosophy and EU law at Queen Mary.

Dr Raffael Fasel is Assistant Professor in Public Law at Cambridge University and founding Co-Director of the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law. Dr. Fasel is a leading voice in animal rights jurisprudence, holding degrees from Cambridge (PhD), Yale (LLM), UCL (MA Philosophy), and Fribourg (LLB, LLM). His award-winning research earned the prestigious Yorke Prize and SNSF Ambizione grant. Recent publications include More Equal Than Others: Humans and the Rights of Other Animals (Oxford 2024), Animal Rights Law (Hart 2023), and Animals and the Constitution (Oxford 2025). Expert in constitutional theory, human rights, and animal law with visiting positions at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and NYU.

We are thrilled to expand the accessibility of our podcast by offering written transcripts of the interviews! Click here to read this episode’s interview.

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