From Rod Munday, Llanishen, Cardiff, UK
The reason MPs voted not to enshrine the Lisbon treaty into UK law was that the treaty is flawed and ineffective in preventing cruelty to animals (2 December, p 25).
After the fine words about animals being sentient beings, the treaty promises to respect “the legislative or administrative provisions of the member states, relating in particular to religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage”.
This caveat means that if member states have a traditional activity involving cruelty to animals they can continue doing it. This includes torturing bulls to death in the bullring for public entertainment, confining veal calves in narrow crates so that they can hardly move, force-feeding geese through metal tubes pushed down their throats to produce foie gras, treating donkeys as if they were unfeeling machines, negligent cruelty to live animals being shipped for slaughter and so forth.
These activities would already be illegal in this country under current UK law.
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