동물은 법인격을 가질 수 있는가?

초록

In today's society, the social awareness of animals is increasing day by day. Animals have been legally treated as objects since Roman law, but recently, the legal status of animals has been improved gradually, such as a new regulation stating that ‘animal is not a thing’ in the civil laws of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. However, rather than understanding animals as objects of protection, there are also arguments that certain rights must be actively recognized for animals or even animals are given legal personality as so-called ‘animal person’ in addition to ‘natural person’ and ‘corporate person’. The argument for granting rights or legal personality to animals was initially argued among philosophers and ethicists, but now some of the jurists have accepted this argument and are laying the legal basis for legislation. This thesis legally considers the question of whether legal personality can be granted to animals as well. To this end, in I., the background for discussing the legal personality of animals is explained, and in II., legislative cases in each country related to the legal status of animals and our legal situation are overviewed. In Ⅲ., the discussion on so-called animal rights and the legal status of animals was examined on what kind of academic basis was formed and developed. Based on this, in Ⅳ., the arguments for and against whether or not legal personality can be recognized even for animals from a legal point of view, and detailed issues to be overcome in the discussion about the legal personality of animals are considered. In conclusion, the author's opinions on the legal personality of animals are summarized in Ⅴ. The author believes the legal status of animals should be improved, but he thinks it is more effective to seek a solution in terms of strengthening human obligations rather than by giving legal personality to animal.

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