Canadian Animal Law

This book provides an important contribution to the debate on the legal status and treatment of animals in Canada. It adresses a range of doctrinal and conceptual questions, situating legal analysis in the broader context of ethical and philosophical debate about justice in human-animal relationships.

In Animals as Legal Beings, Maneesha Deckha critically examines how Canadian law and, by extension, other legal orders around the world, participate in the social construction of the human-animal divide and the abject rendering of animals as property. Through a rigorous but cogent analysis, Deckha calls for replacing the exploitative property classification for animals with a new transformative legal status or subjectivity called "beingness." In developing a new legal subjectivity for animals, one oriented toward respecting animals for who they are rather than their proximity to idealized versions of humanness, Animals as Legal Beings seeks to bring critical animal theorizations and animal law closer together. Throughout, Deckha draws upon the feminist animal care tradition, as well as feminist theories of embodiment and relationality, postcolonial theory, and critical animal studies. Her argument is critical of the liberal legal view of animals and directed at a legal subjectivity for animals attentive to their embodied vulnerability, and desirous of an animal-friendly cultural shift in the core foundations of anthropocentric legal systems. Theoretically informed yet accessibly presented, Animals as Legal Beings makes a significant contribution to an array of interdisciplinary debates and is an innovative and astute argument for a meaningful more-than-human turn in law and policy.

This unique book establishes potential future avenues within the law to enhance the welfare of animals and grant them recognised legal status. Charting the direction of the animal-human relationship for future generations, it explores the core concepts of property law to demonstrate how change is possible for domestic animals. As an ethical context for future developments the concept of a ‘right of place’ is proposed and developed.

This book focuses on animal laws and animal welfare in major jurisdictions in the world, including the more developed legal regimes for animal protection of the US, UK, Australia, the EU and Israel, and the regulatory regimes still developing in China, South Africa, and Brazil. It offers in-depth analyses and discussions of topical and important issues in animal laws and animal welfare, and provides a comprehensive and comparative snapshot of some of the most important countries in the world in terms of animal population and worsening animal cruelty. Among the issues discussed are international law topics that relate to animals, including the latest WTO ruling on seal products and the EU ban, the Blackfish story and US law for cetaceans, the wildlife trafficking and crimes related to Africa and China, and historical and current animal protection laws in the UK and Australia. Bringing together the disciplines of animal law and animal welfare science as well as ethics and criminology with contributions from some of the most prominent animal welfare scientists and animal law scholars in the world, the book considers the strengths and failings of existing animal protection law in different parts of the world. In doing so it draws more attention to animal protection as a moral and legal imperative and to crimes against animals as a serious crime.

*Errata statement - Chapter 4Many Australians and New Zealanders still assume that current animal welfare laws provide animals with sufficient protection from human mistreatment, that cruelty is the exception and that, when exposed, perpetrators are prosecuted. They are wrong on all counts.Animal Law in Australasia, in its 1st edition, highlighted shortcomings in the existing framework and suggested ways in which the law could be improved. It was well-received, with critics calling it "a book to be applauded" (Laura Donellan, Journal of Animal Ethics), "a must for anyone ... interested in animal rights and animal welfare" (Susan Briggs, Release Magazine) and even "a book that changed my life" (The Honourable Michael Kirby).This 2nd entirely revised edition builds upon the significant developments in animal law that have occurred since 2009 and also addresses emerging areas of concern, with 11 brand new chapters.Contributions from Australian, New Zealand and international academics and practitioners cover topics ranging from the explanation of basic concepts of animal protection and theoretical underpinnings of animal law to specific matters of interest including:the regulation of companion animalsthe use of animals in researchdog control legislationanimals in entertainmentthe use of codes of welfarethe application of welfare standards to fishthe impact of WTO regulation on domestic efforts to control cruelty, andAustralia's new regulatory regime for live exports.

Animals and the Law examines the unique role that animals play as living property in a legal system conceived by and for human beings. On the one hand, animals are things that we buy, eat, and use in experiments. On the other, they are beloved family companions. The book traces the history of laws dealing with animals, from the animal trials which began in the thirteenth century in Europe, through the development of anti-cruelty laws, to the present struggle to cope with the conflicting implications of biotechnology and other industrial uses for animals, and, indeed, artificially created living things.

"Animal Metropolis includes a diverse array of work on the historical study of human-animal relations in Canada. In doing so, it aims to create a starting point for an ongoing conversation about the place of animals in historical analysis and, in turn, about the way issues regarding animals fit into Canada's political, social, cultural, economic, environmental and ethical landscapes. One of the most striking aspects of this collection is its capacity to present a wide variety of topics, sources and methodologies within a tightly focused theme. The sources employed in these articles cover a broad spectrum, from state and legal documents to the popular press, from corporate records and NGO reports to personal diaries, and from materials on industrial agriculture to those of the tourism industry. Even more compelling than the sources are the methodological issues that the collection raises. One of our key objectives is to highlight the sheer diversity of approaches historians are employing in their efforts to analyze non-human subjects that do not produce documentary records of their own. By focusing explicitly on urban contexts the book aims deliberately to cleave from a more obvious focus on wild animals and the wilderness environment that are so iconic to Canada. Readers will be impressed by the range of creatures, both domestic and wild: from horses and dogs to beavers and wolves to whales, fish, polar bears and captive elephants. Covering small and larger regions, and in some instances the nation as a whole, the collection offers impressive breadth in scope. Varying widely in the lenses through which human-animal relations are viewed, it brings to the forefront the contemporary as well as the historical dimensions of the issues it raises."--