Vegan Rights Conference Opening: Denmark, September 2024

Welcome to our conference and thank you for making time this weekend to join us.

In February this year, a court here in  Denmark, confirmed that veganism falls within the legal meaning of the human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as set out in Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This right is sometimes referred to as freedom of belief, or freedom of conscience, and refers to the individual human right to believe in and practice our convictions and values, on a daily basis, free from unfair treatment and discrimination.

The case decided by the court, involved a school pupil who was denied access to vegan food while at school. The pupil was not provided with vegan food at school and was prohibited from taking a packed lunch. Therefore, the options open to the family were to find another school or rescind their moral convictions and accept a non-vegan diet. The court correctly confirmed that such a situation was unacceptable and unlawful.

This confirmation, that vegans are protected under the human right to freedom of belief, is the latest in a series of legal cases, including in Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom, that recognise that the convictions of vegans are serious, important, cogent, worthy of respect in our democracies, and of recognition in law.

Veganism was first explicitly found to be within the scope of the human right to freedom of belief in 1993. The case involved a prisoner in the UK who objected to working in the prison print shop because they didn’t want to work with dyes that were derived from or tested on nonhuman animals. This useful finding, emerging from the European Court of Human Rights, lay gathering dust for almost two decades before it was used to ground the campaign for vegan rights some 12 years ago.

At that time, twelve years ago, members of the vegan community were unaware that their beliefs and convictions were relevant to the human right to freedom of belief, and many were sceptical about a campaign that, on the face of it, looked as if it prioritised people rather than other animals. Veganism is a philosophy and a way of life that seeks to exclude all products and derivatives created through the exploitation of other animals, for the benefit of animals, people and our fragile environment. As such, the thoughts of vegans are not on themselves, but focused on compassion for and the suffering of nonhuman others and wider intersecting issues.

But the campaign for vegan rights asks a basic question: how can we bring about rights for nonhuman animals if we don’t also start to change our practices and our policies, on school food and school milk for example? Or if we continue to allow employers, hospitals, prisons and schools to discriminate against vegans and marginalise and render veganism invisible?

My view is that the campaign for animal rights requires us to do everything in our power: including defending our right to with compassion, making law work harder and in our favour to bring veganism from the margins to the centre of our social, political and legal narratives.

I like to think of the campaign for vegan rights as animal rights by the back door. Because when our legal standing is confirmed, the validity of veganism is also confirmed. And when we use our rights to bring about changes in policies and practices, we make veganism more visible, easier, and more accessible to non-vegans. When we have raised the profile of veganism, we have, at the same time, brought the moral standing of nonhuman animals, and compassion, to bear on the dominant norms of prejudice and exploitation.

To shape a world in which nonhuman animals are no longer exploited, and compassion replaces speciesist prejudice, we need many forms of activism. The use of law to protect vegans and advance veganism is one string to our bow to help us in this mission.

The international right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, recognises that we have the right to think and work out our moral orientation and live according to our beliefs and convictions. This right is established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and given legal effect in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which most countries in the world are signed up to. It is reiterated and established in different human rights systems and there are many human rights treaties, Declarations and Directives that refer to this fundamental human right, as well as the human right to freedom of expression and the right to equality under the law.

The right to freedom of belief is explained as far reaching and profound. It protects traditional religions and beliefs, but also new and emerging beliefs. There is no hierarchy of protection, it protects religious and non-religious beliefs equally. The human right to freedom of belief also recognises that there are beliefs that have dietary norms, and judges at the European Court of Human Rights have stated that observing dietary norms can be described as ‘beliefs in practice’.

But international human rights provisions can be interpreted differently in regional human rights systems and in domestic law. This means that we should expect inconsistencies in descriptions, definitions and legal provisions in different parts of the world, and even in different regions within Europe.

I have supported and defended vegans in the UK for over a decade, and, since 2018, I have processed per year over 300 cases of unfair treatment and discrimination against vegans for The Vegan Society, and many more privately. In my work, I have secured out of court settlements for vegans and policy changes in employment, education and in the provision of goods and services. My legal arguments have also resulted in the Scottish government providing funding for early years providers to supply plant-based milk alternative to vegan children in their care.

Today with the help of our valued speakers, we are going to explore the legal protection of vegans around the world. We’ll hear about the issues faced by vegans, pending legal cases and how vegans and veganism have featured in politics. We’ll hear about initiatives for the normalisation of vegan inclusion and the enormity of work still to be done. And we’ll also hear about how the interpretation of the right to freedom of conscience can resist including vegans.