Welcome To Animal Law Review Symposium

Animal Law Review is pleased to invite you to the inaugural Animal Law Review Symposium.

Registration for Oregon CLE credits is available on the Registration page.

The Animal Law Review Symposium will feature some of the leading voices in international animal law, with presentations from:

David Cassuto, Professor of Law at Pace Law School
Maneesha Deckha, Professor of Law at the University of Victoria (Canada)
David Favre, Professor of Law at Michigan State University College of Law
Peter Sankoff, Associate Professor at the University of Western Canada.

David Cassuto, Professor of Law at Pace Law School

Hot, Cruel, and Legal: A Look at Industrial Agriculture and Climate Change in the U.S. & Brazil

The U.S. pioneered and still leads the world in factory farming. Brazil is the world’s largest producer of beef and has a growing confinement agriculture sector. Industrial agriculture, in addition to severely mistreating animals, is a significant contributor to climate change. This paper examines the legal and regulatory regime in both countries and offers some thoughts on why, in an age of growing sensitivity to environmental degradation and animal cruelty, the industry continues to thrive.

Maneesha Deckha, Professor of Law at the University of Victoria (Canada)

Critical Animal Studies and Animal Law

A growing interest within cultural studies in the “animal question” has produced what some have called a “burgeoning” literature known as critical animal studies. Critical animal studies has grown as a field at the same time that interest in animal law has flourished in American law schools. For the most part, however, these two disciplines have developed independently of each other. In this presentation, Professor Deckha outlines the primary contributions of critical animal studies as an emerging field and explains why animal law would benefit from incorporating its insights. Professor Deckha also explains why animal legal advocacy in general should develop a more interdisciplinary orientation.

David Favre, Professor of Law at Michigan State University College of Law

Is an International Treaty for Animal Welfare Needed and Possible?

While cultural context vary between nations, the relationships between humans and animals have a commonality worldwide. The creation of an international standard for the humane treatment of animals would be beneficial to countries that seek to address these issues for the first time. It is also important to have international standards because when individual countries seek to enhance the welfare of animals, these standards can be attacked as trade barriers under the World Trade Organization provisions. The nature, scope and limitations of an international animal welfare treaty will be considered.

Peter Sankoff, Associate Professor at the University of Western Canada

Animal Welfare Law and the Concept of Dialogue: Can Welfare Law Simultaneously Fail and Succeed?

Animal law advocates often debate whether real progress towards the better treatment of animals can ever occur through modifications to the welfare status of animals or whether the abolition of animal exploitation is required for any significant change. In this presentation, I wish to look at this question in a different way, by considering the possibility that some types of animal welfare law, while “failing” in their own right, can nonetheless improve the dialogue between the state, its citizens and animal use industries and as a consequence gradually establish a public space in which meaningful animal welfare reform can in fact occur. Looking at the first ten years under the New Zealand Animal Welfare Act as a case study, I will suggest that the legislation has been useful in advancing the cause of long-term animal welfare reform—though not in the way the legislators might have anticipated. While the Act has failed to stimulate meaningful reform directly, it has changed the nature of the dialogue surrounding animal issues in New Zealand, and in so doing, may well have set the stage for meaningful changes in future years.