Results
| Title |
Author |
Citation | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005-2006 Featured Animal Law Case | Carlos de Paula | 2 Journal of Animal Law 183 (2006) |
This case from Brazil considers a habeas corpus proceeding for a chimpanzee kept in a zoo. |
| The Salience of Species Difference For Feminist Theory | Maneesha Deckha | 17 Hastings Women's L.J. 1 (Winter 2006) |
The article begins in Part I of by examining species difference as a social construction similar to race, gender and other identity and hierarchy markers historically understood as biological. In Part II, while not claiming identicalness in the trajectories of different oppressions, the author discusses how the discursive construction of species difference bears a close resemblance to that of gender and race narratives. The article concludes by calling upon our affective responses to imagine animals as possible candidates for personhood and rights, and, further, to question why being human should be a qualification for justice. |
| CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES AND ANIMAL LAW | Maneesha Deckha | 18 Animal L. 207 (2012) |
Law is anthropocentric. With the limited exception of its treatment of the corporation, law is a system of rules that privileges the concept of the human and ascribes reality through a human perspective. Appreciating this, it is truly impressive that animal issues in the law have become so prominent throughout the legal education system. With this increased exposure to posthumanist critiques of the legal system and its status for and treatment of animals, an increasing number of those involved in legal education are rethinking the law’s species-based hierarchy that places humans at the apex. This flourishing interest in animal law is paralleled by growth in the field of Critical Animal Studies (CAS). However, these two disciplines have developed independently of each other. Acknowledging this, animal law scholarship is currently poised to incorporate the insights of CAS. Integrating such insight into the analysis of animal issues in the law will rectify the speciesist and otherwise exclusionary formulations of the socially constructed differences between various species, which have so far been unquestioned assumptions. CAS offers an understanding of these socially constructed differences and advances a common mission between issues identified as animal injustices and those identified as human injustices. CAS stresses the interconnection between human and animal issues, not simply parallels. This important synthesis can subvert the confinement of animal issues in the legal sphere and is key to extending these essential issues into a more diverse community. |
| TEACHING POSTHUMANIST ETHICS IN LAW SCHOOL: THE RACE, CULTURE, AND GENDER DIMENSIONS OF STUDENT RESISTANCE | Maneesha Deckha | 16 Animal L. 287 (2010) |
This Essay challenges laws’ hegemonic humanist boundaries by analyzing the challenges involved in mainstreaming posthumanist subjects into the legal curricula. Posthumanist subjects in legal education are perceived as marginal and unworthy of serious discussion and scholarship. |
| Speaking for the Modern Prometheus: The Significance of Animal Suffering to the Abolition Movement | Elizabeth L. DeCoux | 16 Animal L. 9 (2009) |
This Article reviews the theories and methods of Abolitionists and Welfarists and suggests one reason that they have failed to relieve animal suffering and death: Welfarists use the right tool in the service of the wrong goal; Abolitionists work toward the right goal but expressly decline to use the right tool. Specifically, Welfarists accurately portray the appalling conditions in which animals live and die, but they inaccurately claim that welfare measures can remedy those appalling conditions without any challenge to the property status of animals. Abolitionists correctly assert that the exploitation of animals must end, and they depict the astonishing rate at which animals are killed and eaten, but they typically spare their audience the unpleasant subject of animal suffering. The thesis of this Article is that the tide of animal suffering and death will turn only when Abolitionists employ the tool used to achieve social change throughout the history of the United States: accurately depicting the suffering of the oppressed, in image and narrative. |
| In the Valley of the Dry Bones: Reuniting the Word Standing with Its Meaning in Animal Cases | Elizabeth L. DeCoux | 29 Wm. & Mary Envtl. L. & Pol'y Rev. 681 (Spring, 2005) |
This Article addresses the failure of the legal system's efforts to protect animals and suggests an effective solution: an action brought in the animal's name by a guardian ad litem. The article documents the failure of HMSA and AWA, exploring the connection between those failed statutes and the law of standing in relation to animals. It then moves beyond the law regarding standing and identifies some of the larger philosophical, ethical, and scientific issues that arise when serious consideration is given to the standing of animals, concluding that there is error in viewing them as the “other” whose interests and rights need not be considered. |
| Trophy Hunting Contracts: Unenforceable for Reasons of Public Policy | Myanna Dellinger | 41 Colum. J. Envtl. L. 395 (2016) | Contracts that are considered “unsavory,” “undesirable,” “at war with the interests of society,” or “in conflict with the morals of the time” may be declared unenforceable for reasons of public policy regardless of whether or not any underlying legislation provides that the contractual conduct is illegal. Allowing wealthy individuals to kill some of the very last few specimens of rare species has become so distasteful to so many members of the general public that the time has come for courts to declare such contracts unenforceable for reasons of public policy. This Article demonstrates how this may be accomplished. The Article also examines the wildlife-protective capabilities of the public trust doctrine and the closely related state ownership of wildlife doctrine. These doctrines add further weight to the contractual argument, but also operate as stand-alone protective doctrines in lawsuits against government entities. To be able to present any of these arguments to a court of law, standing is a hurdle, but one that can be overcome. This Article highlights how this might be done. |
| Using Dogs For Emotional Support of Testifying Victims of Crime | Marianne Dellinger | 15 Animal L. 171 (2008) |
Courts and prosecutorial offices around the nation have started using service dogs to support emotionally frail child witnesses who are unwilling to testify but for the calming presence of a dog. Proponents claim that this new type of therapeutic jurisprudence helps bring criminal defendants to justice in cases where the testimony of the complaining witness is crucial to the prosecution’s case. Opponents fear the infringement of the defendants’ rights to a fair trial because of the dogs’ potential to prejudice a jury to come out in favor of the witnesses. This article analyzes the legal foundations supporting the use of service dogs for emotional support of complaining witnesses in open court. |
| Access to Eagles and Eagle Parts: Environmental Protection v. Native American Free Exercise of Religion | Antonia M. DeMeo | 22 Hastings Const. L.Q. 771 |
This article explores the inherent conflict between the federal laws to protect eagles through the BGEPA, MBTA, and ESA and Native American religious rights. The author finds that the current eagle permit system for Native Americans is incompatible with free exercise of religion. The author concludes that a revamping of the federal eagle permit system as well as the passage of the Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act (NAFERA)would help accommodate religious needs of Native Americans. |
| Calling off the Hunt: The Morality of Supporting a Ban on Commercial Whaling | Tyler Dewey | Animal Legal & Historical Center |
This note examines the current deadlock in the IWC, discusses the shift from conservation towards preservation, and argues for a continuation of the moratorium based on moral and ethical concern for whales as whales. Part I traces the history of whaling and whale regulation. Part II discusses the current regulatory scheme. Part III analyzes the Preservationist position as it concerns whales. It builds from a discussion of the uncertain science concerning whale populations and stock recovery, to a discussion of the pain and suffering inflicted on whales by current whale practices, and finishes by arguing that whales, as unique and intelligent mammals, deserve protection as such. |