Part 2: Debating Animals as Legal Persons

Full length video at: http://www.aldf.org/aals2
On January 5, 2008 the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) held an Open Program on Debating Animals as Legal Persons as part of the AALS annual conference. Defining personhood for purposes of allocating legal rights is a highly problematic endeavor. Nonhuman animals, although sentient beings, are treated as property under the law. They are legal things and thus excluded from legal personhood. This session explored the legal and normative basis for personhood and why nonhuman animals have been excluded from its ambit.

The guest panelists included:

Chair
-Joan Schaffner, Associate Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School

Moderator
-Katherine Hessler, Professor of Law, Case School of Law

Panelists
-Taimie Bryant, Professor of Law, UCLA Law School
-David Cassuto, Associate Professor of Law, Pace Law School
-David Favre, Professor of Law, Michigan State University Law School
-Steven Wise, Adjunct Professor of Law, Vermont Law School, St. Thomas University School of Law

As a result of this Open Program and the efforts and support of the panelists, the Animal Law Section was formally adopted by the AALS Executive Committee in June 2008.

Watch the full 2-part panel at:
http://www.aldf.org/aals1
http://www.aldf.org/aals2

More information can be found on the Animal Legal Defense Fund's website at http://www.aldf.org.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• animal law
• animals
• legal professionals
• animal rights
• animal protection

[MrRussianSpy]

Controlling those out of control, just relaxing in swing is like taking handfulls of water. It cant be done. Those in control need non. They simply Swing

[MrRussianSpy]

We can not control anything. There is no thing to control. Everything is already controlled. It is for us to sit and swing in the experience of life. With respect for the life around us as travellers in the swing. Those " feeling" out of control try to control. They will never gain it. Control is actually the path of least resistance.

[jbberry3923]

AALS reasoning is form from the idea that man evolved from animals which makes its approach self center and encentric. If your were to argue animals as legal persons before the hebrew fathers or maybe even the greeks, they would first build their case upon the fouundation of first principles which relates to man as being a unique species separating and like no other. Totally for the idea of animal protection but to concluded animals are human in nature is pushing it.

[InnocentKisses27]

Why ignorant people always talk about the conscious of plants too? Do they really think a plant can feel? crazy.

And why does this topic brings so many bad comments? Can't a person have feeling towards animals? Can't a person fight for the rights of beings who can't defend them selfs?

I think that some people should just think about it, and don't offend or call offensive names to people who are trying to help this pain and massive massacre to be over.

[buggfire]

i really don't care what level of education you have. our scientist with Ph.D's are blithering idiot jerk offs. the homeless guy on the street probably, no, does have more of a grasp on reality than the spoon feed scum wealth that live far above me and you. while we "struggle for our existence" they are having affairs and eating caviar and wipping their asses with your 401K. the "rabble" are force fed text to deliberately keep the masses dumb, ignorant, and waring with each other.

[buggfire]

1. i said "very few" knew hebrew. i didn't say "none".

2. have you actually been to the factory where they make "cruelty free vegan products"? just like people who buy "cage free" eggs are just as ignorant and are monsters.

3. this is where we differ in consciousness. you believe that things that appear lifeless are really "dead". i believe that the decomposition process of anything is a conscious activity. how does a body know that it's dead so that it decomposes? that is intelligence.

[Beaver411player]

I should also let you know i'm not in high school, lol

[Beaver411player]

A. Yes, people translated and they did know hebrew.

B. Have you never heard of cruelty free vegan products, that's what I use.

c. Yes, things can respond to stimuli and not be alive. Say there is a dead human, the body is laying there and it starts to decompose, that is responding to stimuli, does that make it alive?

What are you a fruititarian are a real jerk by your term for killing "everything"

[buggfire]

c. ask yourself how does something respond to stimuli and not be conscious? ask yourself how does something have life, but not be conscious? you say, "I'm alive, but not conscious." then I could say something terrible about you and it should have no effect on you. you must be a heartless monster trolling the planet devouring any life forms in spite that daddy never hugged you and you can't have an orgasm now from all the coke you snorted in high school. why does the fork spark? because it knows.

[buggfire]

a. i don't mean "God" as the anthropomorphized idol you probably do. the bible was translated to english by scholars how didn't even understand hebrew and latin, very few did. so i question its authority in the exoteric interpretation unless you know what you are reading.

b. if you use lipstick or any other feminine beauty product, you are contributing to animal cruelty and are no better than the bestialitist that made this video.