The article develops an analytic account of nonhuman animals’ current legal status. Animals are often characterised as legal things and property, but this characterisation is both simplistic and, in some cases, incorrect. The article seeks to dispel a number of orthodoxies regarding the legal status of animals and offer a more nuanced and contextual account. The emphasis is on Western law, with a particular focus on European jurisdictions. The article approaches animal legal status in terms of two historical regimes: the Commodity Regime and the More‐than‐Commodity Regime. While treating animals as commodities has been the rule for millennia, the situation has recently become more multifaceted. For instance, the private law status of companion animals has shifted away from that of commodities. Furthermore, it is argued that some wild animals have stopped being legal things altogether as a result of EU wildlife law. The multifarious arguments are then synthesised in order to produce a bird's‐eye view of animals in the law.

中文翻译：

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鸟瞰法律中的动物

本文对非人类动物目前的法律地位进行了分析。动物通常被描述为合法的物品和财产，但这种描述既简单化，在某些情况下也是不正确的。这篇文章试图消除一些关于动物法律地位的正统观念，并提供更细致、更符合背景的说明。重点是西方法律，特别是欧洲司法管辖区。本文从两种历史制度的角度探讨了动物的法律地位：商品制度和超商品制度。虽然将动物视为商品已经是数千年的规则，但最近情况变得更加多方面。例如，伴侣动物的私法地位已经脱离了商品的地位。此外，有人认为，由于欧盟野生动物法，一些野生动物已经完全不再合法。然后综合各种论点，以便对法律中的动物有一个鸟瞰图。