Animal law

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (April 2011)

Animal law is a combination of statutory and case law in which the nature—legal, social or biological—of nonhuman animals is an important factor. Animal law encompasses companion animals, wildlife, animals used in entertainment and animals raised for food and research. The emerging field of animal law is often analogized to the environmental law movement 30 years ago^{[when?][citation needed]}.

Approaches to animal law

Animal law issues encompass a broad spectrum of approaches—from philosophical explorations of the rights of animals to pragmatic discussions about the rights of those who use animals, who has standing to sue when an animal is harmed in a way that violates the law, and what constitutes legal cruelty.^[1] Animal law permeates and affects most traditional areas of the law – including tort, contract, criminal and constitutional law. Examples of this intersection include:

• Animal custody disputes in divorce or separations.^[2]
• Veterinary malpractice cases.
• Housing disputes involving “no pets” policies and discrimination laws.
• Damages cases involving the wrongful death or injury to a companion animal.^[3]
• Enforceable trusts for companions being adopted by states across the country.^[4]
• Criminal law encompassing domestic violence and anti-cruelty laws.

Animal law organizations

A growing number of state and local bar associations now have animal law committees.^[1] The Animal Legal Defense Fund was founded by attorney Joyce Tischler in 1979 as the first organization dedicated to promoting the field of animal law and using the law to protect the lives and defend the interests of animals.^[5]

In the Swiss canton of Zurich an animal lawyer, Antoine Goetschel, is employed by the canton government to represent the interests of animals in animal cruelty cases.^[6] In this capacity, he attempts to ensure that the Swiss animal protection laws, which are among the strictest in the world,^[7] are correctly enforced.

Animal law in academia

Animal law has been taught in at least 119 law schools in the U.S., including Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, Northwestern, University of Michigan, Georgetown, Duke, and Lewis & Clark and is currently taught in at least 117 schools.^[8][9] Animal law is also currently taught in 7 law schools in Canada.^[8] In the U.S. there are Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) chapters in 132 law schools, with an additional seven chapters in Canada. SALDF chapters are student groups that are affiliated with the Animal Legal Defense Fund and share its mission to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system.^[10]

The comprehensive animal law casebook is,^[11] co-authored by Sonia S. Waisman, Bruce A. Wagman, and Pamela D. Frasch. Because animal law is not a traditional legal field, most of the book’s chapters are framed in terms of familiar subsets of law such as tort, contract, criminal and constitutional law. Each chapter sets out cases and commentary where animal law affects those broader areas.

The Animal Protection Laws of the United States of America & Canada compendium,^[12] by Stephan K. Otto, Director of Legislative Affairs for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, is a comprehensive animal protection laws collection. It contains a detailed survey of the general animal protection and related statutes for all of the states, principal districts and territories of the United States of America, and for all of Canada; along with full-text versions of each jurisdiction’s laws.

Recent legal changes influenced by animal rights activists

Regarding the campaign to change the status of animals as property, the animal rights activists have seen success in several countries. In 1992, Switzerland amended its constitution to recognize animals as beings and not things.^[13] However, in 1999 the Swiss constitution was completely rewritten. A decade later, Germany guaranteed rights to animals in a 2002 amendment to its constitution, becoming the first European Union member to do so.^[13][14][15] The German Civil Code had been amended correspondingly in 1997. The amendment, however, has not had much impact in German legal practice yet.^{[citation needed]}

The greatest success of the animal rights activists has certainly been the granting of basic rights to five great ape species in New Zealand in 1999. Their use is now forbidden in research, testing or teaching.^[16](It should be noted that the UK government banned experiments on great apes in 1986 ^[17]). Some other countries have also banned or severely restricted the use of non-human great apes in research.

The Seattle-based Great Ape Project (GAP) — founded by Australian philosopher Peter Singer, the author of Animal Liberation, widely regarded as the founding philosophical work of the animal liberation movement^[18] — is campaigning for the United Nations to adopt its Declaration on Great Apes, which would see chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans included in a "community of equals" with human beings. The declaration wants to extend to the non-human apes the protection of three basic interests: the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture ^[19] (see also Great ape personhood).

See also

• Intrinsic value (animal ethics)
• Animal ethics
• Animal Law Review
• Animal Legal Defense Fund
• Animal welfare
• Animal Welfare Act
• Category:Animal rights and welfare legislation
• Brazilian Abolitionist Movement for Animal liberation
• Hunting Act 2004
• Society for Animal Protective Legislation

References

Bibliography

• “Animal Law: Yesterday and Today” Bernstein, Robin, New Jersey Lawyer, p. 23, 27, August 2005.
• Animal law for “least protected” and “most innocent”, May 20, 2008, The UW Daily, Seattle
• “Fido, Fluffy Become More High Profile Part of Law,” March 29, 2008, USA Today

External links

• Center for Animal Law Studies, Lewis & Clark Law School
• Animal Legal and Historical Center, Michigan State University College of Law
• Animal protection laws, Animal Legal Defense Fund
• International Institute for Animal Law, National Anti-Vivisection Society
• From The State of the Animals III: 2005, Humane Society of the United States

International Animal Law, with a Concentration on Latin America, Asia, and Africa

Progress in Animal Legislation: Measurement and Assessment

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