Lorena Laprebende

Lorena Laprebende is a lawyer, researcher, and lecturer at Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21, where she leads the research project "Subjects of Law: The Impact of New Perspectives in the Management of Canine Populations in Urban Sectors of Argentina". Her interest in animal rights has led her to delve into the study of animal law, publishing articles in international journals, such as the Revista Latino-Americana de Direitos Da Natureza E Dos Animais, and participating in the book La gestión de los animales en el context de la catástrofe (The Management of Animals in the Context of Catastrophe"). She is a doctoral candidate in Civil Law at the University of Buenos Aires and a graduate in fire management and climate change from UNSAM. She is also the director of the Institute of Animal Law of the San Martín Lawyers Association and a member of the Network of Veterinarians in Catastrophes.

Lorena Laprebende's research focuses on the place assigned to animals in current legislation and the possibilities of moving towards a full understanding of them. As part of this academic work, she is a co-author of the Rio de la Plata Declaration of Animal Rights, signed on November 15, 2024 in the Congress of the Argentine Nation, an important milestone in the struggle for the recognition of their rights.

Motivated by her interest in the intersection between law and cultural representation of animals, she joins the CULIVIAN research group of the University of Valencia. From her experience in animal law, she seeks to contribute to the analysis of how literature and visual arts can contribute to the construction of a new ethic that questions anthropocentric parameters and recognizes the subjectivity and rights of non-human animals. Her participation in the group allows her to:

• Contribute with a legal perspective to the analysis of cultural representations of animals.
• Investigate how literature and art can influence the social perception of animals and promote legislative changes.
• Explore the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaboration to advance towards the protection and recognition of animal rights.

While some animals have been declared subjects of law in Argentina, which represents an important step, the lack of a category that includes them in the civil and commercial legal corpus evidences the need to go beyond symbolic declarations. It is necessary to work in the construction of a society that truly respects and values animals. The search for a "third way" that combines ethics, politics, and education is presented as a crucial challenge to guarantee the effective protection of animals in Argentina. And as she expressed in her presentation "Law of and for non-human animals" in the context of the 4th National Meeting of Lawyers of Animal Law - Mendoza 2021, art, in its diverse manifestations, reminds us how close we are to animals, even if we do not want to see it.