Fifth Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Gotta Catch’ Em All (But Not Quite)! Beauty, Utility and the Hierarchies of Life in Pokémon and International Law

[Tamara Grigoras is a PhD candidate in public international law at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and a research fellow at the Waseda Graduate School of Law (Japan)]

Not all creatures are equal. Or so do human animals tend to think. This belief, in turn, underpins and informs most human-made norms and institutions. As normative systems, both the Pokémon gaming universe and international law embody this view, each imposing hierarchies upon nonhuman life, whether labelled as “Pokémon” or as “animals”. International law, for instance, restricts whaling yet authorises the fishing of numerous marine species, suggesting that some creatures are more deserving of slaughter than others. Likewise, the Pokémon gaming universe distinguishes between those Pokémon companions who accompany their trainer on their journey and be part of their core team, and those destined to be fought and captured merely to strengthen the former.

Against this backdrop, this blog post explores these hierarchies of nonhuman animal life as they unfold – often in similar ways – in the Pokémon gaming universe and in international law. In what follows, the discussion focuses on two intertwined, yet competing  logics through which these hierarchies take form: utility and beauty.

Pokémon and International Law as ‘Anthroparchical’ Systems 

International law and Pokémon are both cultural artefacts. Culture itself is a human endeavour, so are Pokémon and international law. International law emerged as a centuries-long process of human societies organising their relations through legal norms and institutions, and the Pokémon gaming universe was created in 1996 by Japanese video game designer and amateur insect collector Satoshi Tajiri. Like all other human creations, Pokémon and international law conform with and embody human views and ideas about the world. This includes what Gillespie regards a form of human chauvinism: anthropocentrism (p. 5).

Anthropocentrism, in simple terms, places human animals “not just at the relative centre of a particular life, but at the absolute, objective centre of everything” (p. 17). It is an ideology that “roots all value in humanity” (p. 115). The primacy of humanity is itself premised on an artificial division between what is human and what is not, a dichotomy between nature and culture. Central to the anthropocentric trope is then this idea that possession of reason is what sets humanity or culture apart from the physical world. In the anthropocentric mind, and because of its human or rational roots, culture is thus deemed superior to the physical world, whose components are to be “controlled and mastered” (p. 247). Anthropocentrism thus underpins what Cudworth calls anthroparchy, the structural supremacy of humans over all other forms of life. Within this framework, nonhuman animals are relegated to the realm of nature rather than culture, “by virtue of biology” ( p. 264).

Pokémon and international law both arguably reproduce the logic of anthropocentrism and its corollary, anthroparchy. In these normative systems, the human sphere is distinct from the nonhuman sphere. In international law, for one thing, only human animals and the legal fictions they create (corporations, states, etc.) are granted legal personhood. The physical world and its elements (like plants and nonhuman animals) are mere legal objects, although the idea of nature’s rights is increasingly gaining traction and recognition. The Pokémon’s gaming universe is equally centred around human animals who are the main protagonists: the trainers. Pokémons are treated, like nonhuman animals in international law, as objects with a limited agency of their own. 

Anthropocentrism then makes space for anthroparchy. In international law, protection of the physical world is justified primarily by reference to human concerns: ensuring human life, health and continued development. The physical world is thereby denied intrinsic value: the human remains the measure of all things as Principle 1 of the Rio Declaration makes it abundantly clear: “[h]uman beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development”). The regulation of nonhuman animals operates similarly, maintaining a strict boundary between human and nonhuman animals and existing for the benefit of human animals (p. 25). Pokémon’s game mechanics (or rules) likewise sustain a form of anthroparchy where the exploitation of nature and the capture of its inhabitants are transformed into a pleasurable and rewarding activity for the player. Trainer’s derive considerable benefits from the capture and training of Pokémon whose fate is to be acquired, tamed and made to obey. The Pokémon’s status is thus between that of a commodity – or, as legendary Pokémon Mewtwo puts it, a “slave” (p. 197) – and of a partner/friend. Its station is at the trainer’s discretion, however.   

The Logic of Utility in Pokémon and International Law 

The hallmark of anthropocentrism is that everything nonhuman gravitates towards the human, for the human stands at the centre of value . On this view, the worth of nonhuman life is measured against human perception or what human animals see, feel or deem valuable. It is “possessive of no value, except that which humanity attributed to it”. Changes in temperature and weather patterns, for instance, are perceived as more pressing than the degradation of distant ecosystems. Thus, mitigating climate change becomes a global priority of international environmental politics, while the loss of remote habitats remains a secondary concern. The way human animals treat nonhuman animals obeys the same logic. International legal norms and Pokémon’s game mechanics both embody and reproduce said logic. The norms and institutions they create construct hierarchies of nonhuman life according to certain human criteria, of which the usefulness of nonhuman life is a decisive factor.  

Utility is a central criterion upon which normative systems rely to categorise and hierarchise nonhuman life. In international law, utility takes many forms (p. 25).  The World Organisation for Animal Health, by way of example, distinguishes between “animals used in agriculture and aquaculture […], companion animals […], animals used for research, […] free-living wildlife [… and] animals used for sport, recreation and entertainment” (p. 32). The conservation of useful nonhuman animals for humans’ benefit is a long-standing international law, which Article II para. 2 of the 1900 Convention on the Preservation of Wild Animals, Birds, and Fish in Africa bears testimony to. This remains an ongoing concern of contemporary international law, which likewise accommodates the human demand for meat and dairy products by establishing rules that facilitate the exploitation of nonhuman animals for consumption (pp. 944–947).  

In the Pokémon gaming universe, utility is similarly the measure against which the place and worth of nonhuman life is defined. Here utility is equated with strength. A Pokémon is an instrument, a tool in the trainer’s pursuit of mastery, the title of ‘Master Pokémon Trainer’, the champion of all champions. If not strong enough, a Pokémon encountered in tall grass will simply be ignored. For strong creatures, game mechanics envision the defeat of certain Pokémons as a source of experience for others’ growth. The rule may also be that capture generates ‘Experience Points’ for the Pokémon that has made capture possible, in which case the otherwise to-be-defeated Pokémon is stored away in a computer. For those Pokémons that trainers keep close to themselves, their utility hinges on their progression in terms of strength. The more a Pokémon evolves or levels up, the more valuable it becomes. The Starter Pokémon, who is raised, trained and carried through the game’s central quest, is likely to be part of the trainer’s core team and used in battles against other expendable Pokémons.

To be sure, international law and the Pokémon gaming universe are not entirely indifferent to the suffering of the nonhuman animals from which human animals derive benefits. Considerations for animal well-being have progressively entered the language of international law (p. 947-954), reflecting a growing recognition that nonhuman animals, like humans, are sentient beings capable of experiencing pain. Pokémon’s game mechanics make some space for Pokémon well-being considerations: they allow the trainer to forfeit a battle with another trainer or flee from an encounter with a wild Pokémon if their Pokémon are in a bad shape. In the movies, trainers who disregard their Pokémons’ stats in battle generally are looked down at and ostracized. Yet, in both normative systems, utility frequently takes precedence over welfare. In international law, as Blattner and Tselepy observe, the suffering of those animals for which international rules exist, is to be limited only to what is deemed “unnecessary,” meaning that protection is afforded only insofar as it remains compatible with human use. In their words, animals are protected only when their protection “is consistent with our use of them” (p. 15). Pokémon’s game mechanics likewise provide solutions, such as potions, to maintain a Pokémon that has been hurt in combat alive so that the trainer does not have to forfeit and lose money to the other trainer. 

The Logic of Beauty in Pokémon and International Law

From a human standpoint, virtually all nonhuman animals have their use. A steak of Grévy’s zebra is arguably as edible as that of a Boulonnais horse, just as Lugia is presumably as effective in battle as Charizard (if not more). Yet even when utility treats nonhuman animals equally, another logic may intervene and trump utility: beauty. Despite being equally useful, the Grévy’s zebra ranks above the Boulonnais in international law, as Lugia does above Charizard in the Pokémon gaming universe. This is only not by virtue of greater utility, but through beauty or symbolic appeal.

In international law, this logic finds one of its clearest expressions in the preamble of the  Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Wild fauna, it notes, comes in “many beautiful and varied forms” and possesses an “ever-growing value […] from aesthetic, scientific, cultural, recreational and economic points of view.” Echoing Humphreys and Otomo’s remarks on the romantic roots of international environmental law, the Convention on Biological Diversity similarly invokes the “aesthetic value[s] of biological diversity and its components”. International law sometimes elevates animal beauty as an ordering principle: as much as certain animals may be useful, their perceived beauty may, by way of law, trump their utility. A jurisprudential expression of this aesthetic logic can be found in the EC – Seal Products dispute. There, the Appellate Body held that the European regulation banning most seal-derived products from the European market falls within the ‘public morals’ exception under international trade law. The perceived “cuteness” of baby seals is what transforms here the consumption of seal products into an affront to European public morals (p. 375). On Bismuth’s (p. 191) anthropocentric reading, this interpretation “endorses the perpetuation of discrimination between species”.  It safeguards states’ “discretion […] to protect the same general moral concern about animal welfare at a higher level for some animals compared to others” (p. 394). 

Pokémon’s own hierarchy between legendary and ordinary creatures reflects a similar blend of aesthetic and utility considerations. The game’s lore locates the origins of the Pokémon’s universe in these legendary creatures that continue to roam the earth in present times. In the gaming universe, the capture of legendary Pokémon marks, alongside the title of ‘Master Pokémon Trainer,’ the ultimate triumph. The appeal of their capture lies with their power, but also with their aesthetically striking and unique feature. They are rare and elusive, granting the trainer but one chance to capture them. To prepare for this encounter, the trainer will grow stronger by training other Pokémon, often by battling and defeating wild creatures or other trainers’ teams. In this framework, ordinary Pokémon are thus sacrificed on the altar of utility to assist the trainer in their pursuit of the legendary while legendary Pokémon are chased after.