Legal Status of Non-human Beings : Adoption of Animal Laws from 1698 to 2008
In this artic le, I analyze the adoption of animal laws in the United States from 1698 to 2008. Tracing the dates of the enactment of animal-related laws shows a clear pattern of the emergence and evolution of the animal welfare and nonhuman rights over time. This article reveals the influence of international emphasis on environmental sustainability and enhanced rights of the nature on legal status of animals: there is a thematic shift from liability of economic property to animal rights-based protection of nonhuman beings throughout the twentieth century. Second, the field of animal laws has clearly changed over time in the framing of animals as "companions" and of "specie s-oriented" guide lines: delineating the characteristics of individual statues and acts, such changes in the US laws are drawn from sociological institutional perspective.