Conferences


In this section, you can find an overview of all the conferences that our Centre is organising or has organised in the past. Conferences are longer events than workshops and are usually focused on a broader range of topics. The views expressed in conference presentations are those of the respective speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law. The Conference is part of our Centre’s mission to promote research that explores and develops the key themes in animal rights law, and to make that research accessible to a broader audience.

Past conferences

European Animal Rights Law Conference 2023

The Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law hosted its fourth annual European Animal Rights Law Conference on 12-13th August 2023 at Clare College, Cambridge.

2023’s Conference was on the theme “Animal Rights in Litigation” and featured leading animal rights judges from around the world in a special panel entitled “Judging Animal Rights”. The event also brought together influential academics from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, the UK, and the US. The keynote address on "Animalization and Dehumanization Concerns: Another Psychological Barrier to Animal Law Reform" was delivered by Professor Maneesha Deckha (University of Victoria).

Presentations by Conference participants can be viewed on the conference playlist on YouTube including a welcome introduction by the Centre’s co-founders, or find individual talks below. You can also download the programme as a PDF file here.

 
 

Panel 1 – Legal Representation of Animals

  • Legal Representation of Animals – An Aarhus Convention for Animals?
    Søren Stig Andersen (University of Copenhagen)

  • Speaking for Animals
    Angela Fernandez (University of Toronto)

Panel 2 – Animal Rights in Action

  • Lessons from Tilikum v. SeaWorld: Consideration of Rights
    Kathy Hessler (George Washington University)

  • Improving Animal Law Worldwide: From Theory to Practice
    Sabine Brels (International Animal Law Consultant)

  • Challenging the Property Status of Animals, One Case at a Time
    Edie Bowles (Advocates for Animals)
    This talk was not recorded.

Panel 3 – Judging Animal Rights: Presentations and Q&A

  • Introduction to Animal Rights Litigation with Joe Wills (University of Leicester)

  • Judge María Alejandra Mauricio (Third Court of Guarantees of the Judiciary in Mendoza, Argentina)

  • Judge Athar Minallah (Supreme Court of Pakistan)

  • Judge Karla Andrade Quevedo (Constitutional Court of Ecuador)

Panel 4 – Judging Animal Rights: Panel discussion

  • Discussion with Judges Mauricio, Minallah, and Andrade Quevedo, chaired by Lord Justice Singh (Court of Appeal of England and Wales)
    This panel was not recorded.

Keynote Address

  • Animalization and Dehumanization Concerns: Another Psychological Barrier to Animal Law Reform
    Maneesha Deckha (University of Victoria)

Panel 5 - Constitutional Animal Rights

  • Animal Rights Constitutionalism: the Fin(n)ish Line
    Elien Verniers (University of Ghent)

  • Constitutional Rights for All Sentient Beings
    John Adenitire (Queen Mary University of London)

  • The Bill on Fundamental Rights in Finland
    Birgitta Wahlberg (Åbo Akademi University)

 

European Animal Rights Law Conference 2022


The Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law hosted its annual European Animal Rights Law Conference on 17-18th September 2022 at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge. The event brought together leading academics from the UK, Germany, Italy, Finland, Belgium, France, and the US. Keynote addresses were delivered by Dr Richard Ryder (RSPCA) and Professor Justin Marceau (University of Denver, Sturm College of Law).

The presentations by Conference participants were divided into four themed panels. You can access the conference playlist on YouTube including Dr Raffael Fasel’s welcome, or find individual talks below. You can also download the programme as a PDF file if preferred.

Panel 1: Foundations of Animal Rights

  • Bernd Ladwig (Free University of Berlin): Animal rights – moral, political and legal dimensions

  • Federico Zuolo (University of Genoa): If you are an egalitarian, how come you're so inclusive? On egalitarianism in animal ethics and beyond


Saturday Keynote Address: Richard Ryder (RSPCA) on Painism, Speciesism, and the Law
The lecture transcript, references and introduction can be read here.

 
 

Panel 2: Animals’ Changing Legal Status

  • Visa Kurki (University of Helsinki): A bird’s-eye view to animals in the law

  • Frederik Swennen (University of Antwerp): Looking beyond the person-property divide

  • Steven McCulloch (University of Winchester): The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act and the role of the Animal Sentience Committee

 

Panel 3: Farmed Animals and Food Justice

  • Josh Milburn (University of Sheffield): Is there a place for animals in the just food system?

  • Steven Cooke (University of Leicester): Caring about farm animal welfare

  • Alice Di Concetto (European Institute for Animal Law & Policy): Animals under a welfarist regime: EU farm animal law

 


Sunday Keynote Address: Justin Marceau (University of Denver) on glass walls and animal protection messaging

 
 

Panel 4: The Constitutional Turn in Animal Rights

  • Iyan Offor (Birmingham City University): Multispecies lawscapes in the Anthropocene: Priorities for a critical, constitutional turn

  • Diana Cerini (University of Milano-Bicocca): The legal status of animals in Italy: bias between the Constitutional Reform and the immobility of the Civil Code

European Animal Rights Law Conference 2021


The Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law hosted the European Animal Rights Law Conference from 17-18th September 2021 in the Woolf Institute on the Westminster College site in Cambridge. The event brought together leading academics from the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Poland.

You can access the conference playlist on YouTube including Dr Raffael Fasel’s welcome, or find individual talks below.

The presentations by Conference participants were divided into four themed panels which can be explored below. You can also download the programme as a PDF file if preferred. Posters and presentations were on display for each talk, and can be downloaded through the linked titles.

Panel 1: Animals and Agency

Keynote Address


Panel 2: Animal Rights Constitutionalism


Panel 3: Property, Personhood and Basic Rights


Panel 4: Animals and War

European Animal Rights Law Conference 2019


The Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law hosted the first European Animal Rights Law Conference from 14-15th September 2019. The event, which took place at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, brought together animal rights law scholars and practitioners from Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Israel, Ireland, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US.

The Conference started in the morning of September 14th with an introduction by Dr Sean Butler and Dr Raffael Fasel. Dr Butler welcomed the 15 speakers and 50 guests, and explained how the Conference fits into the broader range of activities organised by the Centre. Dr Fasel then described the emerging discipline of animal rights law, and proposed the adoption of a pragmatic approach to animal rights, which does not get caught up in labels such as “welfarism” or “abolitionism”. Addressing the Conference’s focus on Europe, Dr Fasel said that;

“ … while there are important dissimilarities between the animal laws of different European states, there are also important similarities—not least thanks to the Council of Europe and the EU. To build much-needed capacities not only in animal rights law scholarship, but also in animal rights law practice, it therefore seemed to make sense to us to first leverage existing European synergies. The mission of our Centre, however, is not only to draw together what already exists but, more importantly, to help build a European community of animal rights lawyers and thereby to generate new synergies …”

The ensuing presentations by the Conference participants were divided into five different panels and included the following speakers (you can download the programme as a PDF file). Posters were on display for each talk, and can be downloaded below.

Panel 1: Habeas corpus for Animals


Panel 2: Constitutional Animal Rights


Panel 3: The Merits and Limits of Animal Protection Regimes


Panel 4: Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Legal Personhood


Panel 5: Animal Rights on the Ground


The keynote address - on the topic “Islamic Conceptions of Animal Rights” - was delivered by Professor Kristen Stilt, Deputy Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Director of the Animal Law & Policy Program. In her engaging address, Professor Stilt explored the resources that the Quran and the Hadith have to offer to promote animal welfare and rights. A preview of the keynote address can be watched here:

The full keynote can be accessed here.

Some more impressions from the Conference: