Results
Title |
Author![]() |
Citation | Summary |
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Detailed Discussion of Welfare Standards for Animals Used in Zoos and Exhibition | Tala M. DiBenedetto | Animal Legal & Historical Center | This paper will discuss federal, state, and private regulation of zoos, aquariums, and sanctuaries. It highlights the ways in which these regulatory mechanisms fail to adequately protect captive wildlife, whether they be held at larger, accreditor facilities or small, roadside zoos. It also highlights meaningful distinctions separating credible zoos, aquariums, and sanctuaries from problematic roadside zoos through compliance with government standards or those set through voluntary, private accreditation. |
Brief Summary of Welfare Standards for Animals Used in Zoos and Exhibition | Tala M. DiBenedetto | Animal Legal & Historical Center | This brief summary explores laws regulating zoos and other animal exhibitions. Zoos, aquariums, and animal sanctuaries are subject to federal, state, and local laws. On the federal level, the Animal Welfare Act and Endangered Species Act protect captive animals at these facilities. However, these statutes only provide minimal welfare requirements and are limited in terms of scope and enforcement. Beyond these federal laws, there are laws that protect specific species and states have adopted their own laws further regulating possession and exhibition of wild animals. In addition to increased regulation, there have been a number of organizations offering accreditation for exhibiting facilities, holding these facilities to a higher standard of animal welfare than the minimum requirements set out by federal laws like the Animal Welfare Act. |
Overview of Welfare Standards for Animals Used in Zoos and Exhibition | Tala M. DiBenedetto | Animal Legal & Historical Center | This overview describes federal, state, and private regulation of zoos, aquariums, and sanctuaries. It highlights the ways in which these regulatory mechanisms fail to adequately protect captive wildlife, whether they be held at larger, accreditor facilities or small, roadside zoos. It also highlights meaningful distinctions separating credible zoos, aquariums, and sanctuaries from problematic roadside zoos through compliance with government standards or those set through voluntary, private accreditation. |
Detailed Discussion of Pet Trusts | Thomas Dickinson | Animal Legal & Historical Center | This article explores the history of trusts created for the care and maintenance of companion animals under common law. It then examines the enactment of state pet trust laws, which now allow individuals to establish trusts to care for pets after their death. Finally, the paper discusses recent challenges in court to pet trusts for excessive amounts. |
EMPATHY WITH ANIMALS: A LITMUS TEST FOR LEGAL PERSONHOOD? | Carter Dillard | 19 Animal L. 1 (2012) | This is one of the fundamental questions that frame the study of animal law: To what extent should nonhuman animals be considered legal persons? Of course, this question presupposes that we share or can arrive at a common and stable conception of legal personhood. In fact, there are a variety of conceptions of legal personhood. This Introduction will explore one in particular and, in the process, question the extent to which simply being born Homo sapiens satisfies the potentially complex and demanding requirements of being a legal person. This argument will lead us to reframe animal law a bit and question whether we protect animals by focusing on their status or whether we are better off focusing on the status of humans—and not so much who we are but who, as legal persons that constitute legalities, we ought to be. |
False Advertising, Animals, and Ethical Consumption | Carter Dillard | 10 Animal L. 25 (2004) |
In light of the fact that today's consumers often want their products to be created in the most environmentally-, globally-, and animal-friendly ways possible, unethical sellers sometimes succumb to the incentive to persuade consumers that goods were created more ethically than they actually were. This article investigates the ways that consumers can protect themselves from false advertising through the use of federal and state agencies, independent review, federal and state courts, and private attorneys general actions. |
From Social Justice to Animal Liberation | Carter Dillard and Matthew Hamity | 18 Animal & Nat. Resource L. Rev. 57 (2022) | Protecting and liberating animals is surely part of social justice’s core of freeing the vulnerable from the powerful, but in many ways the animal movement exists outside of that tide. Arguably that is because of its historic focus on the animals themselves, rather than upon the antecedent, anthropocentric, and outcome-determining nature of human power systems, the ones through which humans oppress one another, and the systems many animal advocates unwittingly accept even as those systems undo any progress—though things like population growth—the advocates claim to be making. This myopia makes claims regarding animal law and liberation a misnomer. Recent attacks on women’s bodily autonomy in terminating pregnancies which will also have a devastating impact on nonhumans, and the animal rights movement’s relative silence in the face of these attacks while continuing largely performative campaigns, is exemplary. This article offers recognition of these power systems through an animal rights perspective, systems which threaten humans and nonhumans from a common source, and a framework for threading animal rights into social justice more generally to overcome those specific actors—many of whom masquerade as animal activists—behind the power imbalance. It also offers a test for the success of the transition, whereby normative systems come to rely on true consent more than coercion or incentives, as a sign that power is being redistributed from the powerful to the vulnerable. |
Symposium: Confronting Barriers To The Courtroom For Animal Advocates - Animal Advocacy And Causes of Action | Carter Dillard, David Favre, Eric Glitzenstein, Mariann Sullivan, and Sonia Waisman | 13 Animal Law 87 (2006) |
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. |
In the Line of Fire: Brown v. Muhlenberg Township and the Reality of Police Seizures of Companion Animals | Denee A. DiLuigi | 9 Animal L. 267 (2003) |
Ms. DiLuigi addresses a companion animal owners’ rights under current law to bring and maintain an action for the unreasonable seizure of their companion animal by an officer as well as an action for the intentional infliction of emotional distress in light of the Third Circuit’s recent decision in Brown v. Muhlenberg Township. Applying various legal doctrines, Ms. DiLuigi also explores potential legal arguments for future litigation stemming from an officer’s execution of a companion animal. |
Free Exercise Does Not Protect Animal Sacrifice: The Misconception of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah and Constitutional Solutions for Stopping Animal Sacrifice | Shannon L. Doheny | 2 Journal of Animal Law 121 (2006) |
In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a First Amendment religious free exercise challenge brought by a Florida Santerían church in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. However, Lukumi may be the most misunderstood legal precedent in recent history. The decision is often cited for the proposition that religious practitioners have a constitutional right to engage in animal sacrifice. This is far from the truth. Lukumi was decided in a unique context, and its holding was not based on the merits of animal sacrifice. This article will demonstrate that Lukumi does not force government to acquiesce to animal sacrifice, or the “litter” it creates. |