Description: APPLAUDING the work of the WA in protecting Human Rights;
REALIZING the importance of sentient beings as food, clothing and medical resources that are imported and exported internationally;
UNDERSTANDING that populations of sentient beings sometimes require sapient intervention to prevent harm and population growth that is detrimental to the sentient being, environment and other beings.
URGING the WA to consider the rights of non-sapient life when sapient interactions constitute a direct effect;
DEFINES a sentient being as an organism that poses the scientifically demonstrated ability to feel and experience pain with the exclusion of sapient beings, whose rights have been defined elsewhere. Hereafter sentient beings will be referred to as animals.
DEFINES a sapient being as having an essential property that bestows personhood, and thus legal rights and duties, onto a being, including humans and any other beings classified by the WA as sapient, hereafter referred to as persons or people.
LIMITS THE DEFINITION of interaction between persons and animals in this resolution to include only all forms of domesticity as well as the hunting of wild animals for sport and/or sustenance.
DEFINES unnecessary as able to be reasonably avoided; anything that is designed to protect the animal, environment or persons in a nation are deemed necessary. Harm inflicted solely to increase revenue is not necessary. The treatment of the animal up until the moment of its death is the primary focus of this resolution and up to the final determination of the WSBC as later defined.
DEFINES pain and suffering as the unpleasant sensory experience associated with actual tissue damage and lasting unpleasant sensory experience as a result of prior tissue damage. The use of anesthetics is recommended to reduce or eliminate pain in unavoidable situations.
PROVIDES animals with the right to safety, reasonable quality of life and freedom from torture by:
1. PROHIBITING the infliction of unnecessary pain and suffering on any animal by any person either directly or remotely including unnecessarily long lasting methods of slaughter.
2. ENCOURAGING that domestic animals kept outside of an individual’s living space for the purpose of industry be provided with an environment that as closely resembles its natural habitat as is reasonable; one example would be “free range.”
3. REQUIRING that individuals or a group that poses legal rights under its nation’s law to an animal provide reasonable protection from harm by other animals and persons.
4. FORBIDING any individual or group to use animals for the express purpose of inflicting pain and suffering on them as a form of entertainment.
5. ESTABLISHES the World Sentient Beings Convention (WSBC), with diverse volunteers from the scientific community that will meet annually at the WAHQ or another suitably neutral site to create and edit a list of sentient species protected under this legislation and determine whether an action is necessary or reasonable if the national governments are unable to come to a consensus or if blatant violations occur.
