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Whilst advocating rights for animals, many thinkers restrict the scope of their analysis to animals endowed with consciousness and exhibiting processes associated with pain and suffering. The Universal Declaration of Animal Rights (UDAR) offers a broader philosophical framework that, although it grants specific rights to animals with higher levels of consciousness, does not exclude other animals. For the goals set down in the Universal Declaration of Animal Rights to be turned into law, knowledge of the physiological and behavioural needs of different animal species and of different individuals must be taken into account. Whereas the quest for justice and rights for animals is a moral consideration, the legal expression of such rights cannot be achieved without relevant biological knowledge.