Animal Ethics and Animal Law

Animal law is a growing discipline, as is animal ethics. In this wide-ranging book, scholars from around the world address the intersections between the two. A project of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, this collection focuses on pressing moral issues and how law can protect animals from cruelty and abuse.

Animal law is a growing discipline, as is animal ethics. In this wide-ranging book, scholars from around the world address the intersections between the two. Specifically, this collection focuses on pressing moral issues and how law can protect animals from cruelty and abuse. A project of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, the book is edited by the Oxford Centre’s directors, Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey, and features contributions from many of its fellows. Divided into three sections, the work explores historical perspectives and ethical–legal issues such as “personhood” and “property” before focusing on five practical case studies. The volume introduces readers to the interweaving between these subjects and should act as a spur to further interdisciplinary work.

Introduction: Law, Ethics, and the Special Status of Animals

By Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey

Part I: Historical Perspectives

Chapter :1 John Philoponus’s Presentation of Animal Rationality and the Law

By Oliver B. Langworthy

Chapter 2: The Gallinger Bill, a Bill to Regulate Animal Experimentation in the District of Columbia: Forerunner of the 1966 Laboratory Animal Welfare Act

By Robyn Hederman

Chapter 3: The Charitable Status of English Antivivisection: How It Was Lost and Could Be Regained

By A. W. H. Bates

Chapter 4: The “Glass Walls” Theory: A History and Discussion of the Guidelines and Laws concerning Nonhuman Animals in the North American Film Industry

By Rebecca Stanton

Chapter 5: Bringing Animal Cruelty Investigation into Mainstream Law Enforcement in the United States

By Randall Lockwood

Part II: Ethical–Legal Issues

Chapter 6 From Ethics into Law

By David Favre

Chapter 7: From Morally Relevant Features to Relevant Legal Protection: A Critique of the Legal Concept of Animals as “Property”

By Frances M. C. Robinson

Chapter 8: The Nonhuman Rights Project’s Struggles to Gain Legal Rights for Nonhuman Animals

By Steven M. Wise

Chapter 9: Animals as Quasi-Property/Persons

By Angela Fernandez

Chapter 10: Housing Rights and Forever Homes: Reforms to Make Our Cities More Livable for Our Companion Animals and Ourselves

By Solana Joy Phillips

Chapter 11: A Legal Critique of the Putative Educational Value of Zoos

By Alice Collinson

Chapter 12: Our Costly Obsession: Animal Welfare, Plastic Pollution, and New Directions for Change

By Mariah Rayfield Beck

Chapter 13: Why Anti-Cruelty Laws Are Not Enough

By Matthew J. Webber

Part III: Case Studies

Chapter 14: The European Union: Make Animal Law Work—The Direct Effect Principle in EU Law as an Instrument for Improving Animal Welfare

By Lena Hehemann

Chapter 15: US and New Zealand: Farmed Animals and the Rule of Law

By Danielle Duffield

Chapter 16: Africa: Crimes against Nonhumanity? The Case of the African Elephant

By Ruaidhrí D. Wilson

Chapter 17: India: Whither Bovinity? Hindu Dharma, the Indian State, and Conflicting Moral Perspectives over Cow Protection

By Kenneth Valpey

Chapter 18: United Kingdom and Ireland: Animal Law Compared

By Maureen O’Sullivan and Stephanie O’Flynn

About the Contributors