International and Foreign Animal Law Research Guide

This guide helps researchers locate information on animal law in an international and foreign law context focusing on law that addresses welfare issues of companion animals, farm animals and animals used in research.

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National (Domestic) Laws on Animals

One of the best places to begin research on foreign law is Foreign Law Guide. It includes country-specific research guides and as is also browsable by subject area—the latter providing references to major laws from jurisdictions around the world on particular subjects (e.g. for animal law, try the “Animals and Animal Welfare” category). Another source of country-specific legal research guides is the free website GlobaLex. For more information about researching foreign law in general, please consult our Foreign and Comparative Law Research Guide.

Various entities active in the area of animal law gather laws from around the world and discuss or summarize them on their websites, sometimes providing hyperlinks to texts of the laws themselves:

  • The Global Animal Law (GAL) Association’s Legislation Database links to relevant laws concerning animal law on a country-by-country basis.
  • Michigan State University College of LawAnimal Legal and Historical Center includes relevant laws from around the world on its “World Law Overview” page.
  • World Animal Protection’s Animal Protection Index includes country-specific pages for much of the world that identify and summarize laws related to animal welfare and includes a tool for viewing comparisons of laws across jurisdictions.

Below is a list of national laws on animal welfare that were written in English, have been translated into English, or have English summaries. Please note that the currentness of the laws listed below varies, so they are best used as starting points to be updated by further research.