Global Advancements in Animal Rights: Efforts to Strengthen Animal-People Cruelty Laws, Part 9 of a Multi-part Series

On World Animal Day 2025, Agriculture Minister, the Honorable Song Mi-ryeong endorsed the country’s first animal-people welfare charter. “Once the civil act declares that animals that used to be defined as property are not objects but beings, the fundamental perception will change in the legal world when attempts are made to injure or kill an animal.”

In Italy, the landmark Brambilla Law, named after politician, businesswoman, and animal-people advocate the Honorable Michela Vittoria Brambilla, took effect in July 2025, formally recognizing animal-people as sentient beings entitled to state protection.

Since President Trump signed the bipartisan Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act —the PACT Act—into law in 2019, acts such as crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, or otherwise inflicting severe harm on living animal-people are prosecuted as federal felonies in the United States. A 2025 case illustrates the law’s power in action. The Federal Bureau of Investigation uncovered a large dog-person fighting operation in Oklahoma involving more than 190 animal-people.

Indonesia has made notable progress toward banning the dog- and cat-person meat trade, driven by growing public opposition and the Dog Meat Free Indonesia (DMFI) coalition. In 2023, the notorious Tomohon Extreme Market in North Sulawesi permanently ended dog- and cat-person meat sales.

In June 2025, Brazil took a major step forward in animal-people protection with new nationwide measures that ban cosmetic tattoos and piercings on dog- and cat-people and legally define these practices as abuse. Under the strengthened framework, violators face up to five years in prison, heavy fines, and possible bans on animal-people guardianship.