Animal law

Animal law is a combination of statutory and case law in which the nature – legal, social or biological – of nonhuman animals is an important factor. Animal law encompasses companion animals, wildlife, animals used in entertainment and animals raised for food and research. The emerging field of animal law is often analogized to the environmental law movement because "animal law faces many of the same legal and strategic challenges that environmental law faced in seeking to establish a more secure foothold in the United States and abroad."

Animal law issues encompass a broad spectrum of approaches – from philosophical explorations of the rights of animals to pragmatic discussions about the rights of those who use animals, who has standing to sue when an animal is harmed in a way that violates the law, and what constitutes legal cruelty. Animal law permeates and affects most traditional areas of the law – including tort, contract, criminal and constitutional law. Examples of this intersection include:

A growing number of state and local bar associations now have animal law committees. The Animal Legal Defense Fund was founded by attorney Joyce Tischler in 1979 as the first organization dedicated to promoting the field of animal law and using the law to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals.

In the Swiss canton of Zurich an animal lawyer, Antoine Goetschel, was employed by the canton government to represent the interests of animals in animal cruelty cases from 2007 to 31 December 2010, when the Zurich Animal Advocate position was abolished. In this capacity, Goetschel attempted to ensure that Swiss animal protection laws, which are among the strictest in the world, were correctly enforced.

Animal law has been taught in at least 119 law schools in the US, including Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, Northwestern, University of Michigan, Georgetown, Duke, and Lewis & Clark and is currently taught in at least 117 schools. Animal law is also currently taught in seven law schools in Canada. In the US there are Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) chapters in 132 law schools, with an additional seven chapters in Canada. SALDF chapters are student groups that are affiliated with the Animal Legal Defense Fund and share its mission to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system.

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