Access to Justice for Animals in Europe: Towards an ‘Aarhus Convention’ for Animals?

Prepared by the Access to Justice for Animals (AJA) Network

Despite growing recognition of animal sentience in European law, animals lack meaningful access to justice, resulting in underenforcement and non-compliance of animal welfare legislation throughout all levels. This report, presented by the AJA network – consisting of 30+ national legal experts in animal law – summarizes the input of a workshop that took place at the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg on 2 July 2025 and calls for a new international instrument to secure procedural rights for animals, ensuring that legal protections are enforceable in practice.

Why this matters

Across Europe, animals are increasingly recognised as sentient beings with intrinsic value. Animal protection provisions have been strengthened in national constitutions, civil codes, and European law, including Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. However, these substantive advances have not been matched by procedural safeguards. In most jurisdictions, there is no meaningful representation of animal interests when animal protection laws are violated.

This gap severely undermines the enforceability and credibility of animal protection legislation and creates an inequality of arms, as the opposite side (e.g. the animal industry and animal keepers) are being represented. It also places animals at odds with broader legal developments in the fields of human rights and environmental protection, where access to courts is increasingly guaranteed.

This policy brief sets out the core challenges, highlights good practices, and proposes pathways toward an international instrument to secure procedural rights in animal protection law.

The enforcement gap

Despite growing legal recognition, animals cannot access justice when their interests are harmed. Legal standing rules typically require a direct, human interest, and very few actors are empowered to act on animals’ behalf. As a result:

• Enforcement failures go unchallenged: Where authorities neglect their duties under animal welfare law, generally speaking, no actor can force compliance 
• Unlawful decisions remain unchecked: Administrative decisions that violate animal welfare norms often escape judicial review. 
• Animals remain unrepresented in court: In court proceedings, there is no consistent mechanism to represent animal interests — especially when the owner is the wrongdoer.

These gaps are not minor technicalities. They amount to a systemic failure to integrate animal interests into the legal order and to ensure that legal protections have practical effect.

Examples of national solutions

Some countries have taken steps to address aspects of this gap:

• Austria and Portugal: Independent animal ombudspersons represent animals, and in (some cases) participate in proceedings and appeal decisions before courts
• Germany, Hungary, Italy: Some countries or states have enacted legislation on representative actions for NGOs, which give them, for instance, a right to complain in administrative cases involving animals in favour of them.
• Netherlands: NGOs may submit enforcement requests and appeal refusals, and in some cases represent animals in civil law.
• France: Animal protection organisations have civil party rights in criminal cases.

However, these solutions remain fragmented, often partial, and difficult to compare. In many jurisdictions, even accessing information relevant to animal welfare is hindered by delays, redactions, or excessive confidentiality rules.

Expert consensus: outcomes from an expert workshop held on 2 July 2025

At a workshop held in Hamburg, convened by the AJA Network, experts from 25 jurisdictions highlighted three core areas for reform concerning access to justice for animals:

1. Access to information: Rights of access to information exist in law, but practice lags behind. Access is often delayed or denied. 
2. Participation in administrative proceedings: Stronger in environmental cases, weak or absent in animal protection matters. 
3. Representation in court: Limited opportunities exist for independent or institutional representation of animal interests in legal proceedings.

Participants debated the merits of reinterpreting or amending the Aarhus Convention (which grants access to justice in environmental matters) to include animals versus the creation of a dedicated new international instrument. While both paths remain to be discussed, the latter offers greater clarity and political coherence.

Guiding principles for reform

Policy and legal reform should be guided by four principles:

1. Flexibility: National legal traditions must be respected; the model must allow differentiated implementation. 
2. Familiarity: Building on and aligning with existing frameworks (e.g. Aarhus Convention, European Convention on Human Rights) increases feasibility. 
3. Procedural focus: The objective is not to impose new welfare standards, but to enforce existing ones through access to courts, strengthening the rule of law. 
4. Effective oversight: Compliance bodies, special rapporteurs, or enforcement pathways must be included and international participation ensured.

A way forward: minimum elements of a future instrument

A proposed international instrument—either a soft law instrument of binding treaty—should contain:

• A broad definition of ‘information on animal concerns’, including material related to animals and their environment and including different categories of animals (laboratory, wild, companion, production).
• Standing for NGOs with statutory animal protection aims, and for designated public bodies such as ombudspersons or animal prosecutors / attorneys.
• Minimum procedural rights for NGOs and other animal representatives, including:
  • the right to access to animal information,
  • the right to request enforcement,
  • the right to appeal implementing decisions,
  • the right to intervene in criminal proceedings.
• A compliance mechanism, e.g. a committee or rapporteur empowered to receive complaints or investigate state practice.
• Inspiration from best practices, such as the Austrian animal welfare ombudsperson, the German representative action [in some federal states], the animal welfare inspector in Kazachstan, the Dutch enforcement request, and the French civil party status in criminal proceedings.

Next steps

• National level: Assess existing mechanisms for access to justice in animal law; consider introducing standing for NGOs or new judicial enforcement mechanisms. Sharing updates on access to courts amongst the AJA network.
• European level: Explore support for an instrument under the UNECE or Council of Europe;
• International level: Coordinate legal experts and civil society actors and other interested parties and stakeholders to establish a drafting committee and roadmap.

Short-term actions include developing legal models for an ideal access to justice for animals with legal scholars, and launching coordinated strategic litigation to raise awareness of enforcement gaps.

Conclusion

Without procedural rights, legal protection for animals remains largely symbolic. There is a pressing need to develop an international framework that ensures animals are not only protected in principle, but represented in practice. Policymakers at all levels have a role to play in closing this gap and restoring coherence to the legal protection of animals in Europe.