Animal Law Commons^™

Demons & Droids: Nonhuman Animals On Trial, Gerrit D. White

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Nonhuman animal trials are ridiculous to the modern sensibilities of the West. The concept of them is in opposition to the idea of nonhuman animals—entities without agency, incapable of guilt by nature of irrationality. This way of viewing nonhuman animals is relatively new to the Western mind. Putting nonhuman animals on trial has only become unacceptable in the past few centuries. Before this shift, nonhuman animal trials existed as methods of communities policing themselves. More than that, these trials were part of legal systems ensuring they provided justice for all. This shift happened because the relationship between Christian authorities and …

Overcoming Inertia To Deliver Sentience Policy Commensurate With Sentience Science, Claire Bass

Animal Sentience

Rowan et al’s target article makes clear that meaningful change in policy and practice to protect animals has failed to progress in lockstep with scientific understanding of their sentience and needs. The underlying causes for inertia in political and practical progress for animals in the UK context are multi-faceted and complex, including economic forces; lack of cross-departmental accountability for animal welfare; and challenges where it suits conservation scientists to dismiss or downgrade the impacts of management decisions on individual animals. All of these influences and more must be understood and addressed if we are to deliver meaningful and timely protections …

Who Gets The Pet In The Divorce? Examining A Standard For The New York Legislature To Adopt, Jared Sanders

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can Sentience Recognition Protect Animals? Lessons From Québec's Animal Law Reform, Michael Lessard

Animal Law Review

Academic literature needs to provide a better understanding of the legal recognition of animal sentience. This Article aims to help fill out this gap by diving into Que ́bec’s legal recognition of animal sentience in 2015. This Article draws three lessons from Que ́bec law’s recognition of animal sentience and biological needs. First, it argues that legal sentience recognition’s fate is to become more than symbolic and to receive normative force. Second, it contends that considering sentience protection as the sole instrument to prevent animal killing and exploitation is a mistake. This is so because respect for sentience is reduced …

Recognising The Sentience Of Animals In Law: A Justification And Framework For Australian States And Territories, Jane S. Kotzmann

General - Animal Feeling

Scientific research is clear that most animals are sentient. This means that they have the capacity to subjectively perceive or feel things such as happiness and suffering. At present in Australia, animal sentience is, to some degree, implicitly recognised in animal welfare legislation that is in operation in all state and territory jurisdictions. This legislation criminalises human cruelty towards some animals because of the capacity such action has to cause animal pain and suffering. There is growing public concern in Australia, however, that such legislation does not adequately protect animals from pain and suffering. The Australian Capital Territory (‘ACT’) has …

Recognising The Sentience Of Animals In Law: A Justification And Framework For Australian States And Territories, Jane S. Kotzmann

Legislation and regulation

Scientific research is clear that most animals are sentient. This means that they have the capacity to subjectively perceive or feel things such as happiness and suffering. At present in Australia, animal sentience is, to some degree, implicitly recognised in animal welfare legislation that is in operation in all state and territory jurisdictions. This legislation criminalises human cruelty towards some animals because of the capacity such action has to cause animal pain and suffering. There is growing public concern in Australia, however, that such legislation does not adequately protect animals from pain and suffering. The Australian Capital Territory (‘ACT’) has …

A Conspiracy Of Life: A Posthumanist Critique Of Appoaches To Animal Rights In The Law, Barnaby E. Mclaughlin

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Near the end of his life, Jacques Derrida, one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, turned his attention from the traditional focus of philosophy, humans and humanity, to an emerging field of philosophical concern, animals. Interestingly, Derrida claimed in an address entitled The Animal That Therefore I Am that,

since I began writing, in fact, I believe I have dedicated [my work] to the question of the living and of the living animal. For me that will always have been the most important and decisive question. I have addressed it a thousand times, either directly or obliquely, …

The Animal Protection Commission: Advancing Social Membership For Animals Through A Novel Administrative Agency, John Maccormick

Dalhousie Law Journal

If the state sought to improve law's treatment of nonhuman animals, what form should its intervention take? This paper questions the assumption that the state would have to choose between incremental welfare reforms and an immediate transition to animal personhood. Drawing on Martha Nussbaum's capabilities theory and on Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka's political approach to animal rights, it argues that the focus should be on how the relationship between human and nonhuman animals can be improved. It suggests that the state could intervene by creating an administrative agency with just this task; and that it could look to labour …

The Profit And Loss Report On Animal Rights: How Profit Maximization Has Driven The Stagnation Of The Legal Identification Of Animals As Property, Anthony M. Doss

University of Massachusetts Law Review

The concern for the wellbeing and humane treatment of animals continues to grow in the United States. However, while public opinion on how animals should be treated has largely changed, the legal classification for animals has not. Nonhuman animals today, just as in centuries past, keep only a property classification in the law. This classification, which we humans assign to furniture, jewelry, and paper plates, comes with a set of legal rights held exclusively by the owner of the property. These rights bestow upon the owner the abilities to sell, use, and destroy the property as they see fit with …

Connexion: A Note On Praxis For Animal Advocates, John Enman-Beech

Dalhousie Law Journal

Effective animal advocacy requires human-animal connexion. I apply a relational approach to unfold this insight into a praxis for animal advocates. Connexion grounds the affective relationships that so often motivate animal advocates. More importantly, it enables animal agency, the ability of animals to act and communicate in ways humans can experience and respond to. With connexion in mind, some weaknesses of previous reform efforts become apparent. I join these in the slogan "abolitionismas disconnexion." In so far as abolitionism draws humans and animals apart, it undermines the movement's social basis, limits its imaginative resources, and deprives animals of a deeper …

Social Membership: Animal Law Beyond The Property/Personhood Impasse, Will Kymlicka

Dalhousie Law Journal

While animal law has been subject to frequent reform in Canada and abroad, the basic legal foundations of animal oppression are largely unchanged. There are many reasons for this impasse, but part of the explanation is that legal reforms are caught in what we might call the property/personhood dilemma. In most legal systems, domesticated animals are defined as property and so long as this remains true, reforms are likely to be marginal and ineffective. However the main alternative-to shift animals from the category of property to personhoodis politically unfeasible, particularly for the domesticated animals who are most intensively exploited in …

Developments In Animal Law: An Evolving Area In Virginia Law, Ryan Murphy

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Canines (And Cats!) In Correctional Institutions: Legal And Ethical Issues Relating To Companion Animal Programs, Rebecca Huss

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

What Is Animal Law?, Jerrold Tannenbaum

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article considers a critically important issue facing the new field of animal law: how to define animal law itself. Two sharply different general approaches to defining the area currently vie for support. One defines animal law as committed to advocacy on behalf of animals, including, for many proponents of this approach, promotion of animal rights. The competing approach defines animal law in a purely descriptive manner, as (roughly) the area of law that relates to animals, whatever substantive principles regarding animals the law may adopt. The Article demonstrates that advocacy-oriented definitions violate fundamental standards of definition and conflict with …

Cheap Meat: How Factory Farming Is Harming Our Health, The Environment, And The Economy, R. Jason Richards, Erica L. Richards

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Why Context Matters: Defining Service Animals Under Federal Law, Rebecca J. Huss

Law Faculty Publications

This Article analyzes the differing definitions of service animals under federal law as interpreted by three separate agencies. The regulations and case law interpreting the issue under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Air Carrier Access Act illustrate the need for further clarification in order to ensure that individuals with disabilities are granted the full protection of the law.

Note from Author: After the publication of this article, in July 2010, final regulations for the ADA were released. These final regulations can be found at 75 Fed. Reg. 56164 (Sept. 15, 2010) (applying to state …

Why Context Matters: Defining Service Animals Under Federal Law, Rebecca J. Huss

Rebecca J. Huss

This Article analyzes the differing definitions of service animals under federal law as interpreted by three separate agencies. The regulations and case law interpreting the issue under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Air Carrier Access Act illustrate the need for further clarification in order to ensure that individuals with disabilities are granted the full protection of the law.Note from Author: After the publication of this article, in July 2010, final regulations for the ADA were released. These final regulations can be found at 75 Fed. Reg. 56164 (Sept. 15, 2010) (applying to state and …

Animal Law, K. Michelle Welch

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Pervasive Nature Of Animal Law: How The Law Impacts The Lives Of People And Their Animal Companions, Rebecca J. Huss

Rebecca J. Huss

Faculty members at Valparaiso University School of Law who attain the rank of full professor are expected to deliver an inaugural lecture to the University community and the public at large. This article is based on that lecture, delivered on September 25, 2008. This Article begins by distinguishing between “animal law,” “animal rights,” and “animal welfare” and discussing the growth of the field of animal law. It continues by setting forth the statistics on the number of companion animals in the United States (“U.S.”) and information about the households who have companion animals. The remainder of the article analyzes some …

Why Care About The Polar Bear?: Economic Analysis Of Natural Resources Law And Policy [Outline], Lisa Heinzerling

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

1 page.

"Lisa Heinzerling, Georgetown Law School" -- Agenda

Rescue Me: Legislating Cooperation Between Animal Control Authorities And Rescue Organizations, Rebecca J. Huss

Rebecca J. Huss

Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that shows how important pets are to many people in the United States, the leading cause of death for dogs and cats in this country is euthanasia because of the lack of homes. Although progress has been made, conservative estimates are that between three and four million dogs and cats are euthanized each year. A successful program for implementing non-lethal strategies to control the pet population incorporates three prongs: (a) increasing adoptions, (b) increasing the number of animals sterilized and (c) increasing the number of animals retained in homes. This Article focuses on the legislative actions …