Europe should embrace a cosmopolitan approach to animal rights

The issue of animal welfare has become increasingly prominent across Europe in recent decades, with several animal rights parties now competing in European elections – most notably in the Netherlands where the Party for the Animals (PvdD) is currently represented in the Dutch parliament. But how should animal rights be incorporated into political communities? Steve Cooke writes that adopting a ‘cosmopolitan mindset’, where human beings act with humanity toward other sentient beings, would offer the best principle for establishing animal rights in practice.