“Santeria”, religious freedom and animal rights: a conflict approach under international law

Animal rights groups have taken prominence in the Brazilian and international media, especially in episodes involving scientific experiments and, more recently, in the initiative of passing laws and pushing the judicial system to prohibiting the practice of ritualistic sacrifice of animals in religious practices of African origin. The deep ecology worldview that animal rights are universal in time and space contrasts sharply with the ritual sacrifice of non-human living beings. This conflict also refers to practices of other equally traditional and centuries-old religious groups related to animals, such as Orthodox Jews and Muslims. In these cases, food prescriptions are reflected in the ritualistic mode of meat slaughter. In Brazil, like many other Western countries, a literal interpretation of the existing rules on animal protection leads to an absolute and non-negotiable state coercion against such religious practices. The apparent confrontation between the positions and, in the underlying way, worldviews between the traditional beliefs and the modern deep ecologism cannot be solved under the same legal order. The central thesis of this paper is admission of the overlapping jurisdictions, as is explicitly provided by the Indigenous and Tribal People Convention (ILO Convention 169), here proposed as the basis for the theoretical path to be followed.