Abstract

Animal welfare is increasingly relevant in the policies, in different fields, of states at national and in-ternational level. It is precisely multilateralism that constitutes an essential instrument for the regula-tion of this branch of environmental law. Various international organisations, among all Council of Europe and European Union, have dealt and are still dealing with this issue with a view to balancing animal interests with human rights. Among these, the main problems arise in relation to the funda-mental human rights to freedom of belief and that finds possible reasons of violation or restriction in the growing prohibitions of ritual slaughter. Starting from a recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, in the case Executief van de Moslims van België and. Others v. Belgium, the analysis reconstructs the multilevel regulatory framework on animal welfare and the most relevant internation-al jurisprudence concerning the relationship between human rights and animal interests