예방적 살처분에 대한 동물법적 고찰

In Korea, avian influenza and foot-and-mouth disease have been constantly occurred from the beginning of the 2000s. To resolve the situation where infectious diseases in domestic animals become constant, the government has prepared more thorough managerial and supervisory measures while strengthening the enforcement of the measures actively considering precautionary stamping out as a preemptive action against infectious diseases. As animals not infected with any infectious disease have become the targets of stamping out for prevention, the number and scale of animals disposed of with stamping out have been steadily expanding. However, various problems have been raised in relation to the continuation and expansion of the stamping out policy. As there is a problem in the validity of the deprivation of the lives of many animals that have not been taken with any disease under the name of precautionary stamping out and situations where living animals are being buried in the ground due to the lack of manpower and equipment have been occurring, the voice of social concern about the current method and process of stamping out has been growing. In addition, the problem of mental and physical damage to stamping out participants is shown to be serious as with farmers or public officials who participated in stamping out suffering from mental trauma. Meanwhile, unsatisfactory ex post facto treatment and management of the bodies of animals that have been stamped out are causing environmental health problems such as the leakage of leachate in burial sites, groundwater contamination, and contamination of surrounding soil. In addition, as the cost of compensation to stockbreeding farmers who suffered damage due to stamping out is constantly increasing, problems are occurring in national finance too as the budget management for thorough disease prevention is put under relatively high pressure. In particular, in that precautionary stamping out is killing healthy animals that have not been taken with any disease under the name of achieving administrative goals such as disease control and prevention and it is a process of depriving living things that are living healthily and feel all pain of their life, the decisions and execution of stamping out should be made very carefully and strictly. However, the current processes of decision on and execution of stamping out do not sufficiently consider the foregoing. In this article, the problems and tasks of precautionary stamping out that has been executed uniformly thus far are reviewed in terms of animal law. The meaning of ‘in terms of animal law’ here refers the position to examine diverse legal issues related to animals based on ‘the dignity of animal’ or ‘animal welfare.’ First, the actual state and problems of animal stamping out are examined first and the meaning of precautionary stamping out in the modern ‘risk society’, related regulations, legal nature, and the limitations examined thereafter. Based on the discussion as such, the tasks of precautionary stamping out in terms of animal law are reviewed.