Animal Law Commons^™

Reaching For Justice: An Analysis Of Self-Help Prosecution For Animal Crimes, Jennifer H. Rackstraw

Animal Law Review

Although prosecutorial discretion is a firmly entrenched legal doctrine in the United States, such unbridled discretion impedes the vigorous and consistent prosecution of animal crimes. With an overwhelming incidence of animal cruelty and neglect crimes perpetrated in the United States every year, documented cases should not be passed over for prosecution due to a lack of empathy on the part of the prosecutor, a misplaced understanding of the seriousness of animal cruelty crimes, or a dearth of resources. To ensure that animal crimes are more vigorously and consistently prosecuted, citizens should take advantage of existing mechanisms that allow for public …

Ten Years Of Animal Law At Lewis & Clark Law School, Nancy V. Perry

Animal Law Review

This introduction is a summary and extension of remarks presented in the keynote address for the 10th Annual Animal Law Conference at Lewis & Clark Law School.

Front Matter

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Enforcing Existing Rights, Cass R. Sunstein

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Political Ideology And The Legal Status Of Animals, Robert Garner

Animal Law Review

Mr. Garner challenges the traditional notion that significant improvements to animals’ well being cannot be achieved absent an abolition of their status as mere property. In so doing, Mr. Garner explores political factors affecting animal protection, including the current ideological climate and western notions of liberalism.

The Legal Status Of Nonhuman Animals

Animal Law Review

On September 25, 1999, a distinguished group of legal scholars met in New York City at the 5th Annual Conference on Animals and the Law, hosted by the Committee on Legal Issues Pertaining to Animals of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, to discuss how the law classifies nonhuman animals and whether the current legal framework is in accord with scientific understanding, public attitudes, and fundamental principles of justice. This conference took a monumental step in facilitating discussion about, and furthering the cause of, the legal protection and welfare of nonhuman animals.

Comments are included …

Roots Of Human Resistance To Animal Rights: Psychological And Conceptual Blocks, Steven J. Bartlett

Animal Law Review

Mr. Bartlett discusses the psychological and conceptual impediments to human acceptance of the notion of animal rights. He posits that human characteristics such as homocentrism, human narcissism, and species-selfishness all function to keep animals from securing their rightful place in the existing social and legal framework. Mr. Bartlett also argues that human attitudes, policies, and behavior affecting animals are influenced by underlying conceptual pathologies, and that animal advocates would be well served by taking into account such human pathologies in their quest for greater animal protection.

Shoot First, Talk Later: Blowing Holes In Freedom Of Speech, Jacqueline Tresl

Animal Law Review

Ms. Tresl examines the constitutionality of hunter harassment laws. When a five-step doctrinal analysis is applied to hunter harassment statutes, it is clear that the statutes are content-based and subject to the strictest of scrutiny. Because the statutes fail the strict scrutiny test, they therefore violate the American citizenry’s First Amendment right to free expression.

2001 Legislative Review, Laurie Fulkerson

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Animal Law And Animal Rights On The Move In Sweden, Helena Striwing

Animal Law Review

Ms. Striwing, an attorney at law in Sweden, provides a glimpse into Swedish laws and practices affecting animals in that country. She discusses the development and characteristics of such laws and offers suggestions regarding implementation and enforcement that may also be utilized by other countries in their quests to afford animals greater legal protections.

The World Trade Organisation Rules: A Legal Analysis Of Their Adverse Impact On Animal Welfare, Peter Stevenson

Animal Law Review

Mr. Stevenson analyzes the free trade rules of the World Trade Organisation and discusses their detrimental impact on certain measures designed to protect animals. Specifically, he discusses U.S. laws to safeguard dolphins and sea turtles, as well as proposed EU laws regarding leghold traps and cosmetic testing on animals. Mr. Stevenson provides an analysis of current WTO rule interpretation, identifies ways in which the rules should be reformed, and provides a less restrictive interpretation that would permit the existence of measures designed to improve animal welfare.

The Economic Value Of Companion Animals: A Legal And Anthropological Argument For Special Valuation, Geordie Duckler

Animal Law Review

Mr. Duckler delves into valuation issues that arise in the context of recovery of non-economic damages for death and injury to companion animals. He argues that the special nature of companion animals in society necessitates an assigned monetary worth to such animals that is distinct from and exceeds mere market value. As support for this contention, Mr. Duckler provides relevant legal, sociological, and anthropological analyses.

Canning Canned Hunts: Using State And Federal Legislation To Eliminate The Unethical Practice Of Canned "Hunting", Laura J. Ireland

Animal Law Review

Ms. Ireland explores the methodologies, ethics, and dangers of canned hunting and offers ways to challenge the practice through existing and proposed state and federal statutes. In so doing, Ms. Ireland examines statutory law as it relates to exotic animals, the definition of “animal,” the anti-cruelty exemptions, and husbandry practices. Finally, the feasability of statutory enforcement by agencies is examined.

Could A Chimpanzee Or Bonobo Take The Stand?, Angela Campbell

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dead Dog Running: The Cruelty Of Greyhound Racing And The Bases For Its Abolition In Massachusetts, Erin N. Jackson

Animal Law Review

Under the guise of sport, greyhound racing persists in Massachusetts and sixteen other states, despite the industry's notoriety for animal abuse. The cruel practices employed in greyhound racing, including the culling of litters; the use of live lures in training; the provision of substandard living conditions and care; and the systemic, premature killing of greyhounds bear undeniable likeness to the barbarity perpetrated in the illicit animal fighting sports of bullfighting, dogfighting, and cockfighting. Yet, greyhound racing masquerades in the Commonwealth as an innocuous pastime, even though the industry-wide, calculated refusal to provide care for and consequent killing of throngs of …

Front Matter

Animal Law Review

Front Matter contains title page, masthead, advisors, and Table of Contents for Animal Law Review Volume 7, Issue 1.

The Role Of Animals In Livable Communities, Earl Blumenauer

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dismantling The Barriers To Legal Rights For Nonhuman Animals, Steven M. Wise

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Step At A Time: New Zealand's Progress Toward Homonid Rights, Rowan Taylor

Animal Law Review

All members of the Homindae Family (humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) share complex cognitive aptitudes not shared by most other animals. Yet only human hominids have legal rights to life and personal security. The campaign to win fundamental rights for all hominids took a small but significant step forward in 1999 when New Zealand's Animal Welfare Act banned the use of non-human hominids in research, testing, and teaching except where such uses are in the hominids' best interests. In preventing human interests from trumping non-human ones, the Act took a first step toward dismantling speciesism within the hominid family. …

Will The Heavens Fall? De-Radicalizing The Precedent-Breaking Decision, Paul Waldau

Animal Law Review

This article offers an extended analogy for the purpose of posing basic questions about proposals for granting legal rights to some nonhuman animals. The analogy is drawn from the precedent-breaking eighteenth century English case Somerset v. Stewart, which liberated an African slave. The article argues that one can identify features of the eighteenth century debate which illuminate features of today's debate over proposed uses of centrally important legal concepts for some nonhuman animals. Using the comparison for the limited task of highlighting the complex cultural backdrop in each situation, the article suggests that the comparison helps one see the nature …

Legal Trade In African Elephant Ivory: Buy Ivory To Save The Elephant?, Sam B. Edwards Iii

Animal Law Review

Trade in endangered species is a complicated issue. The trade in ivory creates tensions between western conservation-driven beliefs and developing countries' reliance on wildlife as a resource. This article examines the recent decision under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to conduct a one-time sale of ivory from Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana to Japan. Since trade in endangered species involves many different disciplines, this paper touches on biology, international law, economics, and public policy. In theory, limited trade in African elephant ivory is possible and even advantageous for the various actors. However, in practice, the management controls …

Rebuilding The Wall, Bill Davis

Animal Law Review

The debate about whether nonhuman animals deserve legal rights encompasses an ever broadening range of theories and strategies. Most thinkers pushing for nonhuman animal rights reject speciesism, which they view as an often tacit foundation for their adversaries' arguments. Yet almost every current contributor to the debate-whether they favor or disfavor the extension of rights beyond the human sphere-engages in some form of intelligenceism by focusing disproportionate attention on humanlike animals. This essay submits that nonhuman animal advocates must recognize this pervasive intelligenceist bias and be wary of the detrimental effects its substitution for speciesism could have on their long-term …

2000 Legislative Review, Alicia Finigan

Animal Law Review

Our third Legislative Review reports the passage and de- feat of several state and federal, administrative and legislative actions. Ms. Laurie Fulkerson has researched and written on four major pieces of federal legislation; Mr. Chris Brown has discussed additional federal advances, and a re­view of state initiatives which both advance and undermine animal welfare; Ms. Amy Baggio has reviewed the passage of state anti-cruelty statues. Finally, Ms. Alicia Finigan has reported on the United State's Pelly Amendment certifica­tion of Japan for violating the International Whaling Com­mission's resolution to cease its illusory "research whaling" for minke, sperm and Bryde's whales.

Ten Lessons Our Constitutional Experience Can Teach Us About The Puzzle Of Animal Rights: The Work Of Steven M. Wise, Laurence H. Tribe

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Crime Victims' Rights: Critical Concepts For Animal Rights, Douglas E. Beloof

Animal Law Review

It is simultaneously intimidating and presumptuous to make observations about a movement that one is not intimately involued in. I am not an animal rights scholar. However, I am in the dignity recognition business. As a legal advocate and academic, I work to promote the dignity of human victims of crime. I have written the only casebook for law students about crime victims law, consult with Congress about crime victim law, and advise attorneys and victim organizations around the country. I also lwt·e considerable expe­rience in taking movements and moving them into practical operations within prosecutors' offices; for example, in …

Recovery Of "Non-Economic" Damages For Wrongful Killing Or Injury Of Companion Animals: A Judicial And Legislative Trend, Sonia S. Waisman, Barbara R. Newell

Animal Law Review

The emotional bond between humans and their animal companions can be as strong as that experienced between two people, and animal companions are often looked upon and treated as members of the family. When they are wrongfully killed or injured, however, the legal system traditionally has not adequately recognized this important relationship. Instead, recovery has been limited to the market value of the animals. It is time for state laws to explicitly acknowledge the significance of the human-animal companion relationship and codify recovery for such non-economic injuries as emotional distress and loss of companionship. This article examines why damages for …

"Cruelty To Police Dog" Laws Update, Craig Scheiner

Animal Law Review

Mr. Scheiner updates his article, Statutes with Four Legs to Stand On?: An Examination of "Cruelty to Police Dog" Laws, published in Volume 5 of Animal Law.

Animal Welfare Law In Canada And Europe, Elaine L. Hughes, Christiane Meyer

Animal Law Review

The idea that animals are entities that deserve protection, irrespective of their utility to man, is firmly grounded in the Enlightenment. The principle that a creature's need for considerate treatment did not depend on the possession of a soul or the ability to reason, but on the capacity to feel pain was formulated and debated at that time. The debate continues today-Canada is in the midst of examining its own ethical, philosophical and legal beliefs about animal welfare and cruelty. This article examines the current state of animal welfare and cruelty laws and recent attempts through federal legislation to modernize …

1999 Legislative Review, Aaron Lake

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

A House On Fire: Linking The Biological And Linguistic Diversity Crises, Kieran Suckling

Animal Law Review

Although it is a truism among conservation biologists that humanity is in the midst of the Earth's sixth great extinction spasm, overt public awareness of the crisis is dim, and understanding of its implications even dimmer. The house is burning down around us, and even as the beams begin to cave in, we have but the vaguest intuition of the enormity of the danger. How is it possible to ignore the biosphere careening toward an extinction catastrophe unparalleled not only in the brief span of human history, but in the last sixty-five million years of life on Earth? The question …