“Lawmaker Wants Cockfighting [to be] Part of Heritage”: A Critical Analysis of the 2003 Convention and the Struggle of Animal Rights Groups

This article critically examines the 2003 Convention and the struggle of animal rights groups. Throughout the analysis references will be made to the currently inscribed elements to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the 2003 Convention’s criteria in place. In addition, the article demonstrates the 2003 Convention’s implications for the current debates on intangible cultural heritage and animal rights through a case study from the Philippines. The questions raised are developed within the broader discourses of the political, philosophical, and legal literature relevant to the issue of animal rights and intangible cultural heritage. It is argued that intangible cultural heritage practices that maltreat animals are not sustainable, and the definition of sustainable development currently being used by the United Nations is more holistic and inclusive than understood by the designers of the 2003 Convention; it can encompass the rights of animals, not only when their abuse and mistreatment is considered as serious damage to the environment, but also when their right to exist within the environment is violated.