Legal Niches

Exotic Animal Atrocities

Posted on February 08, 2010
Jonathan Vandina Earlier this year an undercover investigator worked for a Texas wildlife importer. During the months of his employment he witnessed and documented some of the most horrifying and indiscriminate acts of wildlife animal cruelty in captivity that have ever been recorded...

The 2010 Animal Law Moot

Posted on February 06, 2010
David Cassuto I’m in Boston — well, Cambridge actually – at a cute little law school tucked away in a modest, unassuming university they have up here.  This year marks my seventh consecutive year judging the annual Animal Law Moot Court Competition, an event staged by Lewis & Clark’s Center for Animal Law Studies in collaboration with the [...

Owning What You Eat

Posted on February 05, 2010
David Cassuto From the shameless self-promotion desk: I have a new chapter/article available on SSRN.  It’s called Owning What you Eat: The Discourse of Food.  You can get it here.  It will appear in DEMOCRACY, ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW, a book forthcoming this fall...

The Truth About Track Closings

Posted on February 04, 2010
Jennifer Krebs (Board of Directors, GREY2K USA) There was a lot of press coverage recently regarding the latest dog track closings in Arizona, Wisconsin and Massachusetts.  The closing of Phoenix Greyhound Park and Dairyland Greyhound Park was good news, in that they are more evidence of the gradual implosion [...

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Ohio Issue 2 Aftermath

Posted on February 03, 2010
David Cassuto Reports of the death of animal advocacy in Ohio in the wake of last fall’s passage of Issue 2 have been greatly exaggerated.  Ohioans for Humane Farms has begun the process of getting an initiative on the ballot that would: 1. Require the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board to establish minimum humane standards for certain [...

A Small Victory for Live Skinned Raccoon Dogs

Posted on February 02, 2010
Michelle Land On January 29th, the Humane Society of the United States announced a settlement had been reached with clothing retailer Saks Fifth Avenue on the matter of false advertising and mislabeling of fur garments.  As a result, Saks has agreed to impose new garment labeling practices and change advertising policies...

Hypatia ? Call for Papers

Posted on February 01, 2010
David Cassuto Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy has issued an intriguing call for papers, which follows below: 4. Animal Others Special Issue Volume 27 Number 3, Summer 2012 Guest Editors: Lori Gruen and Kari Weil We are soliciting papers for a special issue of Hypatia on Animal Others...

League of Humane Voters Hit With a Stiff Fine (with a note on ?animal rights?)

Posted on January 31, 2010
David Cassuto The New York League of Humane Voters  just got hit with a 6 figure fine for failing to register as a lobbying organization or file spending reports while pushing for a ban on carriage horses in NYC.  I know nothing of the backstory here and am a firm believer that lobbyists should be registered [...

China ? Where Pigs Go to Die

Posted on January 28, 2010
David Cassuto Here’s a scary quotation from a scary article: The fastest growth in meat consumption occurs when people’s income is less than $5,000 per year, and China’s current figure is around $ 3,000, so we are still on the fast track...

RICO Case Against Petland to Proceed

Posted on January 27, 2010
David Cassuto A federal district court in Phoenix has allowed a racketeering trial  to proceed against Petland.  The suit alleges that Petland violated the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and myriad state laws by misleading thousands of consumers across the country into believing that the puppies they purchased were healthy and came from [...

Cow Abuse

Posted on January 27, 2010
ABC News expose of horrific abuses by the dairy industry.  More here.

Starve the Poor (and the Animals)

Posted on January 26, 2010
David Cassuto Lt. Governor Andre Bauer of South Carolina recently compared poor people to stray animals. He declared himself focused on reducing the number of people on government assistance because:  “my grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals...

Haggis is Legal

Posted on January 25, 2010
David Cassuto Apparently, haggis was illegal.  It was banned in 1989 by health officials fearing mad cow disease (which is not really called mad cow nor is it confined to cows).  Haggis is a pudding made of (among other things) sheep offal and is a Scottish delicacy and a particular favorite at commemorations of the poet, [...

How Not to Parent

Posted on January 22, 2010
Bridget Crawford The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports here about a mother who forced her son to bludgeon his pet hamster.  The 12 year-old’s offense?  Bad grades.  After the child told his teacher about the incident, the teacher reported it to the authorities...

NYSBA Environmental Law Section Conference Call on CAFO Permitting

Posted on January 21, 2010
From the email: The Environmental Law Section’s Agriculture and Rural Issues Committee will host a conference call on Wednesday, February 3rd from 2:00 ? 3:00 pm to provide information and answer questions about the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) permit program...

Go Here, Read This

Posted on January 21, 2010
David Cassuto This is a very interesting piece by Stephanie Ernst.  She argues that the crusade against factory farming undermines the larger animal rights movement by creating safe rationalizations for the consumption of local, “humanely raised” animal products...

Announcing ?Our Hen House?

Posted on January 21, 2010
David Cassuto Mariann Sullivan and Jasmin Singer are two of the jewels in the crown of the animal advocacy movement.  Both women have labored tirelessly on behalf of the voiceless for many years and in many ways.  Now they have a new way.  Their new project is called Our Hen House and is much more than [...

Animal Control = Execution in Two Mississippi Counties

Posted on January 20, 2010
David Cassuto What kind of a world do we live in where a person pledging to be the 41st vote against health care reform wins Ted Kennedy’s seat?  The same sort of world, apparently, where an animal control officer slaughters hundreds of animals and dumps their bodies in a creek...

Some Legal News

Posted on January 20, 2010
David Cassuto I don’t often get around to doing roundups of animal law in the news.  Fortunately, there are folks with more gumption than I.  ALDF, for example.  Check it out.

Cap and Trade for Animals?

Posted on January 19, 2010
David Cassuto A journey outside the box of animal welfare law brings us to this article, ” An Introduction to Cap and Trade for Animal Welfare,” by Alan Nemeth, in the Journal of Animal and Environmental Law.   The article is about just what the title says...

ABA-TIPS Event in Chicago

Posted on January 15, 2010
From the email: ABA-TIPS Humane Education Project – Chicago Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers (HEART), the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), and Northwestern Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) chapter are pleased to invite you to a free training workshop for the Humane Education Project of the American Bar Association?s TIPS Animal Law Committee...

Haiti

Posted on January 14, 2010
David Cassuto What can one say?  Unimaginable suffering on an epic scale unleashed on a population who were already barely surviving.   Please help.  My organization of choice is Doctors Without Borders but there are lots of them out there.  Whatever we can do is what needs to be done...

The Tropical Fish ?Crop?

Posted on January 14, 2010
David Cassuto The recent cold weather in Florida has hurt the tropical fish industry.  I have a few things to say about this.  For one, the NYT refers to the fish as a “crop.”  I’ve railed about rhetoric in this space before (here, for example) but this one feels really egregious...

Food Fight at McDonald?s

Posted on January 13, 2010
David Cassuto So a woman throws a tantrum and destroys some property when her McDonald’s meal is prepared wrong (apparently, she was “unhappy with her cheeseburger”).  Some foundational questions: how does one prepare such a thing “right?”  And how would one know?

NYSBA ?Hot Topics in Animal Law? CLE Program

Posted on January 10, 2010
David Cassuto Looks good.  Full skinny here.  Find it on and at: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 1:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. New York Hilton 1335 Avenue of the Americas, New York City Bryant Suite, 2nd floor More info from: Kim Hojohn, Staff Liaison, khojohn@nysba...

Fasting on the Bayou

Posted on January 08, 2010
David Cassuto I blog from New Orleans, where I am attending the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) annual meeting.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, tomorrow is the meeting of the Animal Law section.  Today I field tripped with the Environmental and Natural Resource sections...

Why It?s Not About the Elephants

Posted on January 06, 2010
Here now, a few words about the Ringling Brothers case.  The suit focused on the treatment of Asian elephants ? an endangered species ? by the circus.  Much credible evidence suggests that the elephants were mistreated, both by intent (using bullhooks to ?train? them) and by the rigors of the circus life, a life which [...

Newsflash: Dolphins are Smart

Posted on January 03, 2010
David Cassuto This article discusses some recent scientific findings about the intelligence of dolphins and their ability to communicate and learn.  The researchers conclude that “it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing...

Some Thoughts on ?Old Partner?

Posted on January 03, 2010
Matthew Blaisdell Film Forum provides the following quote and review in its promotion for ?Old Partner,? a film in a 1-week engagement at the theater (ending January 5th). (http://www.filmforum.org/films/oldpartner.html) ?Until one has loved an animal, a part of one?s soul remains unawakened,?? (Anatole France)...

Ringling Brothers Decision ? Justice Denied

Posted on January 01, 2010
David Cassuto The decision is in.  It’s a debacle.  Read about it here.  I’ll have more to say when I’ve studied the opinion.

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