Animal Law Commons^™

Justice In Colorado: Achieving Animal Plaintiffhood Through The State's Common Law, Mason Liddell

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The common law of Colorado embraces all of the premises necessary to conclude that non-human animals are legal persons who may bring suits on their own behalf. All that is necessary is for a case to bring those premises together. The state endorses a Hohfeldian understanding of rights and duties, meaning the two concepts are necessarily corollaries. So, humans’ existing statutory duty to avoid being cruel to animals entails that those same animals have a right to be free from cruelty under state statute. Then, premised on a long line of legal philosophy and the state’s understanding of “legal personhood,” …

Stopping A Cat-Tastrophe: States Must Develop Stricter Management Regimes For Controlling Feral Cat Populations, J. Cameron Niemeyer

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Note will explore the feral cat crisis in the United States and offer a set of potential solutions using existing regulatory frameworks and invasive species management regimes. Part I will discuss what invasive species are and how feral cats fit into the wider problem of invasive species. Part II will then provide an overview of the current statutes, rules, and decisions that govern invasive species management in the United States. Part III will provide an overview of the management techniques for several common invasive species in the country, and compare those techniques to how the United States manages feral …

Service Animal Rights In Hospitals & Other Businesses That Offer Public Accommodations: Americans With Disabilities Act - Title Iii, Yara Duran

Law Student Works

This pathfinder guide provides an overview into the laws that govern an animal’s rights and restrictions in hospitals, healthcare facilities, and other businesses that offer public accommodations. This guide is intended for attorneys, hospital administrators, and business owners who wish to understand what the law requires in their interactions with service animals. The information gleaned through this research can be used to develop legally compliant policies that protect all interested parties. Secondarily, this guide is intended for law students who would like to learn more about the legal rights and restrictions of service animals.

The guide will begin by discussing …

On The Rights Of Sentient Beings: The Case For Expanding Due Process Of Law To Non-Human Animals, John Bolliger

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Critical Moral Dilemma Within Animal Law Impact Litigation, Kyla Dayton-Woods

Animal Law Review

Animals, as legal clients, deserve the same rights as people when being represented by attorneys. There is no Model Rule of Professional Conduct to guide attorneys on how to ethically represent their animal clients. This gap in the law demonstrates an uncertainty in how lawyers are meant to fulfill their moral and legal obligations for their animal clients. Using the Nonhuman Rights Project’s representation of two elephant clients, Beulah and Karen, as a test, this Article proposes a Model Rule to fill the moral gap. If this proposed rule was incorporated into the Model Rules, Beulah and Karen’s attorneys may …

From The United States To Pakistan: Can Climate Change Pave Toe Way For An International Right To Animal Rescue In Disasters?, Altamush Saeed

Animal Law Review

Over 69% of the world’s wildlife has been lost between 1970 and 2018. Catastrophic events like the Australian bushfires, the Amazon rainforest fires, and the ongoing floods in the United States have led to the deaths of several billion animals. Ongoing apocalyptic floods have put one-third of Pakistan underwater and led to the deaths of over a million livestock animals. Climate change, human rights, and animal rights have become so intertwined that all life—including human, nonhuman, and plant life—is on the brink of extinction.

The Disrupted Path To Becoming Easy, Breezy, Beautiful: How Companies Are Deceiving Consumers With Their Animal Testing Products, Wendy Chao

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

Legal Recognition Of Animal Sentience: The Case For Cautious Optimism, Jane Kotzmann

Animal Sentience

Rowan et al.’s target article provides a valuable indication of the work that was required to reach the point where animals are recognised as sentient in various laws. To ensure this work was not in vain, the language of sentience needs to be used as a moral currency to demand further cultural change involving greater human respect for animals.

"Very Complex Questions": Zoos, Animals, And The Law, Dana Mirsky

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In Sulawesi, Indonesia—forty-five thousand years ago, an artist painted what is now the world’s oldest known cave painting—a life-size image of a wild pig. Forty thousand years later, the elite of Hierakonpolis, Egypt, housed elephants, hippos, and baboons in the world’s oldest known zoo. Today, individuals keep exotic fish, reptiles, and birds as pets while zoos and aquariums display some of the largest and rarest animals on the planet. The human fascination with wild animals is clearly not a new phenomenon, but how and why we keep wild animals have evolved over time. Zoos in particular have changed dramatically just …

Legal Purgatory: Why Some Animals Are Neither Persons Nor Property, Sharisse Kanet

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

All animals with non-borderline sentience are deserving of certain legal considerations independent of their use and relationship to human beings. That is, all sentient beings should have some rights. Given the current organization of the U.S. legal system, which divides all entities into property or persons, it is not surprising that animals are relegated to property status. I put forth a proposal to fix this whose central suggestion is that we create a third legal designation, legal patient, into which all non-person sentient animals (those which do not properly belong on either current category) would fit. These animals would receive …

Animal Sentience: History, Science, And Politics, Andrew N. Rowan, Joyce M. D'Silva, Ian J.H. Duncan, Nicholas Palmer

Animal Sentience

This target article has three parts. The first briefly reviews the thinking about nonhuman animals’ sentience in the Western canon: what we might know about their capacity for feeling, leading up to Bentham’s famous question “can they suffer?” The second part sketches the modern development of animal welfare science and the role that animal-sentience considerations have played therein. The third part describes the launching, by Compassion in World Farming, of efforts to incorporate animal sentience language into public policy and regulations concerning human treatment of animals.

Federal Protection For "Fur-Babies": A Legislative Proposal, Rebecca Ferrari

Pepperdine Law Review

Americans love their animals, but America doesn’t protect them. Across the country, animals continue to be classified as mere property, undeserving of any basic rights and unprotected by the animal welfare statutes that do exist, but often remain unenforced. This Article proposes a comprehensive animal protection system that includes the following components: (a) general prohibitions against animal crushing, cruelty, neglect, and abuse; (b) a civil action provision that will allow humane society officers to investigate violations of those prohibitions; (c) a provision establishing animal legal advocates to work alongside the officers and prosecute violations; and (d) an animal-suit provision to …

Global Animal Law And International Trade Law After Ec-Seal Products: An Interactional Analysis, Katie Sykes

PhD Dissertations

This thesis is a case study of the formation of new norms in international law. The norms are those that concern animal protection. The thesis argues that international trade law is playing a part in the development of international legal norms for animal protection. The theoretical model applied is interactional international law, the theory of the constructivist international legal scholars Jutta Brunnée and Stephen Toope. Interactional theory posits that legitimate, binding international law arises from norms based on shared understandings, exhibits specifically legal characteristics that correspond to Lon Fuller’s criteria of legality, and is created, maintained and supported through interaction …

If Animals Are Like Our Children Let Us Treat Them Alike: Creating Tests Of An Animal’S Intelligence For Determinations Of Legal Personhood, Paul Mclaughlin

Law Library Faculty Scholarship

Children and animals are treated much the same under the law. Both are seen as having limited, if any, legal rights. For children there are legal processes that can be used to determine if a minor is mature enough to be considered a legal person for life affecting decision making considerations and emancipation proceedings. Animals, no matter what their intelligence levels, are not allowed an opportunity to be found as legal persons and are denied the rights, privileges, and responsibilities that legal personhood bestows. This article looks at the similarities between the historical treatment of children and animals and argues …

Animal Property Rights, Karen Bradshaw

University of Colorado Law Review

The animal rights movement largely focuses on protecting species whose suffering is most visible to humans, such as pets, livestock, and captive mammals. Yet, we do not observe how unsustainable land development and fishing practices are harming many species of wildlife and sea creatures. Fish and wildlife populations have recently suffered staggering losses, and they stand to lose far more. This Article proposes a new legal approach to protect these currently overlooked creatures. I suggest extending property rights to animals, which would allow them to own land, water, and natural resources. Human trustees would manage animal-owned trusts managed at the …

Animal Rights In The Shadow Of The Constitution, Ariel L. Bendor, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg

Animal Law Review

In this Article, we consider whether granting constitutional protections can improve animal welfare. To that end, we carry out a comparative analysis of legal systems that protect animal rights by constitutional tools, identify and analyze the ideas underlying those protections, and explore their adaptability. Focusing mainly on the Israeli case, we argue that constitutional law cannot provide adequate protections for animals and, contrary to the conventional wisdom, might even impair their protection.

Chimpanzees In Court: Limited Legal Personhood Recognition For Standing To Challenge Captivity And Abuse, Davidson Anestal

Alumni Works

No abstract provided.

The Value Of Existence, David N. Cassuto

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

One does not read Beating Hearts passively. I found myself agreeing often, disagreeing often, and sometimes doing both at the same time. Just as frequently, the book made me reexamine my views from a perspective I had not considered before. For example, prior to reading the book, I had not explored the basis for my belief that causing the death of a living being is a morally significant act. The authors (with a post-mortem assist from Epicurus) have seen to that deficiency. This forum seems an ideal place to push that discussion a bit further.

Bearing Witness: Is Giving Thirsty Pigs Water Criminal Mischief Or A Duty?, Anita Krajnc

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Inside The Cage To Outside The Box: Natural Resources As A Platform For Nonhuman Animal Personhood In The U.S. And Australia, Randall S. Abate, Jonathan Crowe

Journal Publications

Nonhuman animals are currently treated as property under U.S. and Australian law, leaving them open to various kinds of exploitation. There has been a gradual evolution away from this property paradigm in both countries, but significant work remains to ensure that nonhuman animals are afforded adequate legal protections. This article considers the legal avenues available to protect nonhuman animals in the U.S. and Australia, focusing particularly on the attribution of legal personhood. Section 2 of the article reviews attempts by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) to establish legal personhood protections for nonhuman animals through writ of habeas corpus petitions under …

Focusing On Human Responsibility Rather Than Legal Personhood For Nonhuman Animals, Richard L. Cupp Jr.

Pace Environmental Law Review

We should focus on human legal accountability for responsible treatment of nonhuman animals rather than radically restructuring our legal system to make them legal persons. This essay, provided at the kind invitation of the Pace Environmental Law Review (PELR) and Steven Wise, President of the Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc., outlines a number of concerns about animal legal personhood. It does so primarily in the context of the plaintiff’s brief in The Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. Lavery, filed in the New York Supreme Court, New York County. The first Lavery lawsuit (Lavery I) was filed in Fulton County in late …

Animal Rights: From Why To How, Joan Schaffner, Sherry F. Colb, Michael C. Dorf, David Favre, Lori Gruen, Angela P. Harris, Dale Jamieson

Animal Law Review

On January 9, 2016, the Association of American Law Schools hosted a panel by the Section on Animal Law in New York City. The panel featured legal professionals, scholars, and experts from various disciplines who discussed strategies for securing legal rights for animals. The panel explored what the animal rights movement can learn from other social movements, which legal approaches are available to animal advocates, and the need for non-legal strategies to change cultural attitudes. This panel moves beyond the discussion of whether animals have rights, and addresses the important questions and potential strategies for improving the lives of non-human …

Living With Owning, Matt Ampleman, Douglas A. Kysar

Indiana Law Journal

In October, 2011, Terry Thompson committed suicide by gunshot after cutting open the cages of fifty-six exotic animals on his farm in Zanesville, Ohio. Fearing for pub-lic safety, law enforcement officers systematically hunted down the escaped animals in an episode that garnered international attention and prompted renewed discus-sion of the propriety of exotic animal ownership. This Article retells and discusses the circumstances surrounding Terry Thompson’s unhinging, applying frameworks of legal theory, chiefly in the realm of property law, to assess the fabric that held Thompson’s delicate system together and the tensions that led to its unravelling. As an autopsy, the …

Don't Be Cruel (Anymore): A Look At The Animal Cruelty Regimes Of The United States And Brazil With A Call For A New Animal Welfare Agency, David N. Cassuto

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In the United States and around the world, animals exploited for human use suffer cruel and needless harm. The group bearing the brunt of this exploitation--agricultural animals--is routinely exempted from the largely ineffective and rarely enforced animal welfare and anti-cruelty regulations that exist today. This Article offers a comparative analysis of the agricultural animal welfare regimes of two countries with globally significant presence in the agriculture industry: the United States and Brazil. Even though the two countries approach agricultural animal welfare differently, they arrive at the same outcome: institutionalized indifference to animal suffering. To remedy the current regulatory structure, this …

Breaking The Silence: The Veterinarian’S Duty To Report, Martine Lachance

Animal Sentience

Animals, like children and disabled elders, are not only the subjects of abuse, but they are unable to report and protect themselves from it. Veterinarians, like human physicians, are often the ones to become aware of the abuse and the only ones in a position to report it when their human clients are unwilling to do so. This creates a conflict between professional confidentiality to the client and the duty to protect the victim and facilitate prosecution when the law has been broken. I accordingly recommend that veterinarian associations make reporting of abuse mandatory.

They Asked For Protection And They Got Policy: International Primate's Multilated Monkeys, Marci Messe

Akron Law Review

In the next sections, this note will discuss animal rights litigation in general, examine the facts and background of International Primate Protection League v. Institute for Behavioral Research, Inc., analyze the decision, suggest an alternate means of review for the plaintiffs, and discuss the present situation and ramifications of the case.

A Stepping Stone Toward Companion Animal Protection Through Compensation, Zachary Paterick, Timothy Paterick, Sandy Sanbar

Animal Law Review

Despite the fact that many Americans view their companion animals as part of the family, the law treats companion animals as personal property. The courts have viewed companion animals as property for over 200 years, however, this precedent no longer adequately accounts for the important role companion animals play in modern day lives, and no longer appropriately compensates for the true value the animal has to the owner. A modified investment approach, stemming from wrongful death precedent, provides both a qualitative and quantitative approach to adequately measure the compan-ionship value these animals have to humans. While courts have entertained various …

Decoding "Never Again", Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article, Decoding “Never Again,” narrates its author’s experience as a child of two Holocaust survivors, one of whom participated in rescuing thousands of his fellow Jews during the war. Colb meditates on this legacy and concludes that her understanding of it has played an important role in inspiring her scholarship about (and ethical commitment to) animal rights. She examines and analyzes the ways in which analogies between the Holocaust and anything else can trigger people’s anger and offense, and she then draws a distinction between occasions when offense is an appropriate response to such analogies and when it need …

Update - June 2013, Loma Linda University Center For Christian Bioethics

Update

In this issue:

-- Will You Be a Provider or a Professional?
-- The Jack Provansha Bioethics Lecture Opens LLU School of Medicine Alumni Convention
-- From the Director - One Generation to the Next
-- Animal Rights: A Call to Commitment
-- Vegetarianism: The Interface of Science & Values
-- Bioethics at the Alumni Postgraduate Convention
-- Obamacare and the Future of Loma Linda
-- Center's Bioethics Grand Rounds: Poetry at the Bedside