A society where animal rights are not anchored in the Constitution is actually no good. This is how you could summarize the conclusion of The Open Society and its Animals. Janneke Vink (29), lecturer in philosophy of law at the Open University in Heerlen, obtained his PhD in Leiden on this thesis. Next year it will appear in book form in the Animal Ethics Series by Palgrave Macmillan.

"In the current way in which we relate to animals, we humans are actually tyrants: we rule animals and give them no certainty about what they can expect from us," Vink says. "We could abolish every animal law tomorrow. But if we take animals seriously as a member of our society, which I propose, you have to think of something. "