Results

After a flurry of legislative activity in the 1990s, EU animal welfare initiatives have stagnated of late. This article seeks to explain why, by pointing to factors such as changing EU membership, implementation costs, and fallout from extremist attacks. After providing an overview of recent animal welfare legislation, the paper discusses the slowdown and its causes, and then ventures some educated guesses about what can be expected on the European animal welfare front in coming years.

This article presents the remarks of Steven M. Wise on the status of animals in the legal system.

This Article proposes a new use of existing property law concepts to change the juristic personhood status of animals. Presently, animals are classified as personal property, which gives them no status or standing in the legal system for the protection or promotion of their interests. Professor Favre suggests that it is possible and appropriate to divide living property into its legal and equitable components, and then to transfer the equitable title of an animal from the legal title holder to the animal herself. This would create a new, limited form of self-ownership in an animal, an equitably self-owned animal.

Part I of this Note will critique normative moral theory with respect to its fundamental role in animal welfare proselytizing, its applicability to legal theory, and its usefulness as a basis for legal decision making. Part II will discuss international trade disputes arising over morality-based domestic import restrictions in order to examine why the GATT has consistently been interpreted to err on the side of free trade and consumer choice. Finally, Part III will argue that the DCPA is not only an ineffective and unenforceable law but also potentially counterproductive to the goals of the Western animal welfare movement and overly costly to global trade infrastructure in light of more effective alternatives.