ENVS 284 – Animal Law & Policy

This course will provide an overview of law and public policy as they apply to non-human animals. The course will explore the historical and philosophical treatment of animals; discuss how such treatment impacts the way judges, policymakers, lawyers, legal scholars, and lay people see, speak about, and use animals; survey current animal protection laws and regulations, including overlap with such policy issues as food and agriculture, climate change, and biodiversity protection; consider recent political and legal campaigns to reform animal protection laws; examine the concept of “standing” and the problems of litigating on behalf of animals; interrogate the current classification of animals as “property” and the impacts of that classification; and debate the carceral turn in animal legal advocacy.