Jason Jia-Xi Wu (Harvard University, Harvard Law School) and Valentina Liu (Harvard Law School) have posted Reimagining Companion Animal Rights: A Theory of Contractualized Property Ownership (Washington University Global Studies Law Review, forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Companion animals present a conundrum. Across legal systems, animals are classified as personal property and thus subject to human ownership. Yet they offer invaluable love, affection, and friendship—things that ordinary chattels simply cannot provide. Despite their social and emotional significance, the sale of companion animals is governed by the same legal principles that govern furniture, automobiles, or household appliances. Once title passes, the seller’s interest ends. Whether the animal receives adequate care, is abandoned or neglected, or suffers abuse is largely left to the owner’s private discretion.
The dominant response has therefore been to enact stronger welfare protections and tighten public enforcement. In the United States, all fifty states prohibit some form of animal cruelty, and some impose affirmative duties concerning food, shelter, social interaction, and veterinary care. But those laws are systematically underenforced. Mistreatment often occurs within private homes, while public authorities lack the information, resources, or incentives to prosecute violations. In other jurisdictions, including China, legislatures have not prioritized animal welfare and may never enact meaningful protections. Those twin institutional failures—which we term “enforcement gaps” and “legislation gaps”—leave animal suffering undetected, unremedied, and effectively beyond the law’s reach.
This Article turns to private ordering as a potential solution. Animal rights theorists have long characterized property status as the source of animals’ subordination. We challenge the premise that property provides only a vehicle of dominion and control. Where public authorities are unwilling or unable to act, property can become a source of protection. Because property consists of a divisible, customizable “bundle of sticks,” parties can contract for ongoing welfare obligations, monitoring rights, transfer restrictions, and preventative remedies even after title transfers. That contractual division of ownership reflects a longstanding principle of property law: title can pass without transferring every stick in the bundle.
Building on that insight, this Article proposes a standardized but modular regime of contractual governance for companion animal welfare. Private contracting can narrow enforcement gaps by generating information and civil remedies before harm becomes irreversible, while addressing legislation gaps by supplying standards that public law has failed to provide. More broadly, this Article articulates a theory of contractualized ownership: the use of contract to reconfigure property entitlements into a continuing regime of governance after transfer.
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