THE LEGAL PROTECTION OF THE BULLFIGHTING AS AN INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE

The legal regulation of bullfighting has historically evolved under a paradigm of the protection of public order. This perspective, which has prevailed for the past two centuries, seemed an appropriate one in the regulation of a mass spectacle needing rules to ensure its purity and to discipline its well- ordered development. The bullfighting spectacle responds to uncontested sociological and cultural traditions, rooted in enlightened modernity, and has been deeply identifiedand even confused- with Spanish idiosyncrasy. In the last two decades, abolitionist movements have crystallized into legal prohibitions and growing threats against the preservation of bullfighting. The Catalonian abolitionist law of 2010, which represents the most distinct embodiment of this trend, has ignited long- term convocation in various towns and autonomous communities, and even in some bullfighting countries overseas ( such as Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Mexico). Paradoxically in France, where taurine legislation was born under a protectionist framework to secure minority traditions in set regions, bullfighting was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, following criteria defined by UNESCO. This latter road was used as a driving force in Spain to push forward a popular legislative initiative from Catalonia that would eventually lead to the adoption of the Law 18/ 2013, 12 December, in which the regulation of bullfighting would be considered a cultural heritage. The legal declaration of bullfighting as a protected cultural asset related to " common" values established in historical and cultural contexts prioritizes its preservation as it concerns assets of intangible heritage, of which its existence and protection transcends the interests of the autonomous community. This law represents a sea change in the legal regulation of bullfighting because it diametrically changes the legal paradigm of its regulation, shifting it from a field of public order and spectacle to one of culture. It also opens a door hitherto unexplored to the deregulation of bullfighting and relevant issues concerning the practice of its lex artis, establishing a foundation from which minorities' right to preserve cultural identity is legally protected.