Animal Rights

Summary:

This article details the legal work currently being done to prevent animal cruelty as well as suggestions for future goals.

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This article celebrates the fifteenth volume of the Animal Law Review based at Lewis & Clark Law School by discussing the journal's history and development.

Summary:

Contemporary research regarding non-human animals’ intelligence, emotional life, and capacity for reciprocity strongly suggests the need for a sweeping re-evaluation of their legal status as mere property. In this essay, the author will contend that the contractarian theory of philosopher John Rawls provides an ideal basis for this re-evaluation.

Summary:

Separate from its vulnerability to criticism by those politically opposed, a call for legal rights for animals is without justification on the very two pillars on which such a claim presumes to found itself—the precepts of law and of science. The claim’s inherent weaknesses are revealed in the use of terms that are inapplicable given both the way that legal rules work as a practical matter and the current level of our scientific knowledge about animals themselves. This article confronts these two core defects of the animal rights paradigm and seeks to shed the light of law, science, and reason on what seems to be an unreasonable, nonscientific, and yet ill-critiqued phenomenon.

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In this Introduction to Volume 14, Issue 2 of Animal Law, the author reflects on the 72nd North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, an annual professional gathering for wildlife management professionals (mostly government wildlife managers).

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In this introduction to Volume 14 of Animal Law, the author reflects on the progress of the animal law movement.

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In the third panel of the NYU Symposium, distinguished animal law professionals discuss various causes of action which may be used on behalf of animals in the courtroom. Panelists talk about traditional forms of standing, make suggestions for innovation using existing laws, and discuss visions of how they would like to see the law develop as it pertains to standing for animals.

Summary:

For animal advocates, one of the most significant barriers to the courtroom is standing. In order to litigate on behalf of an animal’s interests in federal court, the advocate must first establish standing by meeting three requirements: (1) the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact, (2) the injury must be causally connected to the act about which the plaintiff is complaining, and (3) the court must be able to redress the injury. When it comes to non-human animals, how does an advocate demonstrate an injury to establish standing? In this panel, experts in animal litigation discuss the concept of establishing legal standing for animals and animal advocates; the panelists’ own experiences, including specific cases and creative methods used; and the future of legal standing for animals.

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This document provides a listing of animal-related law review and journal articles from 2006.

Summary:

In this discussion, panelists explore the many viewpoints society holds with respect to nonhuman animals. The discussion broadly covers ethics and what constitutes ethical behavior in this regard. The question dealt with is, largely, what is the appropriate ethical model to use when arguing that animals deserve better treatment and expanded rights? Unlike parallel movements for human civil rights or women’s equality, the animal rights movement has much greater hurdles to overcome when it comes to arguing that animals deserve equal treatment under the law. In an attempt to address this question, the dialogue touches upon many areas of human thought. The panelists take on diverse fields such as philosophy, science, anthropology, environmentalism, and feminism and use them to understand the past and present state of animal law. The analytical tools of these several disciplines are also applied to animal law in an attempt to develop a better model for the future.