An Animals' Charter By Noël Sweeney
From All-Creatures.org Book Reviews/Interviews

Author: Noël Sweeney

Several Reviews

Publisher: Alibi

An Animals' Charter
Available at Amazon
ISBN:978-1-872724-12-6

Reviews:

Noël Sweeney returns to investigate the network of hypocrisy, lies and laziness in which we live by our treatment of animals so as not to have to face bad news about ourselves. An Animals' Charter recounts the root of our prejudices and all those ideas and positions that we take for granted. Indeed, animal abuse, carrying centuries of reflexions, should be in our guidelines for the 21st century. Animal abuse constitutes unacceptable cruelty to non-human animals, just living beings, entities of their own, and Sweeney’s book helps us to develop a consistent argumentation. But I find it gripping that he leaves the reader at all times committed to common sense and their own knowledge of reality.
- Helena S.


An Animal’s Charter is a clarion call to humans to address the suffering of their non-human animal cousins, by granting them legal rights in the form of a charter. The reader is gifted with a reasoned, evidenced and enlightened narrative of the many ways in which billions of sentient animals are enslaved, tortured and maligned for human use. An animal holocaust. The Charter is timely indeed, reminding us that ‘Yet where animals are concerned we have still not learned that in the seeds of their destruction we sow our own’, this, as the world grapples with a global pandemic caused by a virus, widely accepted to have originated from the appalling conditions in which animals are kept and used. The Charter provides the answer to the origin of those familiar echoes, they are racism and sexism. Animals need An Animals Charter to remind us that ‘Animals exist for their own interests and their own reasons.’
- Carol C.

About the Author:

My legal practice as a barrister involves complex and serious cases for the prosecution and defence. The areas I cover include animal abuse, armed robbery, discrimination, drug-dealing and murder.
 
Since its introduction, I have taken a special interest in the Human Rights jurisprudence because of its impact on all areas of English Law. It has a direct relevance to the welfare and ‘rights’ of all of us and no less on whether an animal has a right to live.
 
I have lectured and written widely on the subjects relating to my practice. I have had a long-term interest in animal law, especially their legal role and status. Animals are treated as our ‘property’ as a matter of law. While ecologists and philosophers and environmentalists raise valid issues, the only method of changing the position of animals within our society is by law. Only the law can change their status so animals are accepted and valued in their own right with  a 'legal personality' as living creatures. Rights, whether they relate to humans or animals, run with life itself. Living a life minus rights is a synonym for being shackled by the bonds of birth.   
 
The Black Lives Matter movement gathered momentum following the murder of George Floyd. Yet when we say ‘All Lives Matter’, we limit the idea to humans. Yet animal rights is the major moral crusade of the 21st century. Animals are secondary to human interests because they do not have the ability to resist those intent on harming them: us. We make money subjugating animals much as slavers made money subjugating people. Animals are hamstrung by the lack of a human tongue to boldly speak the truth that Animals' Lives Matter too.
 
The universal crisis of climate change has highlighted the significance of bees to our planet. Although small in size, their rise and fall mirrors the health of our planet as bees are a bellwether for us and a lodestar for our law. While the world can exist without us, it cannot continue to thrive let alone survive without bees.
 
My main interests outside of law are music and poetry and wielding a saw. I have collaborated with the legendary prescient musician, Liberation Drummer, on several songs with an animal rights theme. I am keen on woodwork and have passed the time by making a carriage clock and a mahogany pendulum wall clock. Most of my writing is done at a pedestal desk with a defined grain. It is a bespoke desk I made of solid American black walnut.
 
Walking helps my ideas to ferment as there are so many wild sights to satisfy a restless mind while hiking beneath a silvery Somerset sky. Countryside rambles are often the catalyst for my writing as the images which unfurl prove that by saving a single life you can save the entire world.

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