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Canadian Law Journal Dedicates Entire Issue to Animal Law for the First Time Ever

For the first time in Canadian history, a law journal is dedicating an entire issue to the growing field of animal law. The 2019 issue of the Canadian Journal of Comparative and Contemporary Law is entitled Beyond Humanity: New Frontiers in Animal Law, and features articles about industrial farming, contributions by many leading Canadian animal law scholars, including several law professors that serve as directors and advisors to Animal Justice.

The foreword to the special issue was authored by Senator Murray Sinclair, former chair of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and Senate sponsor of legislation that banned whale and dolphin captivity. Senator Sinclair recasts the need for stronger animal protection laws as a matter of Indigenous reconciliation, emphasizing the Indigenous worldview and its relationship with environmental protection and animal welfare.

Other topics include the problems with self-regulation by Canadian animal farming industries; feminist jurisprudence for farmed animal law; Canada’s new ban on whale captivity; bearing witness to animal suffering and the Save Movement; the problems with privately-funded prosecutors in animal cruelty cases; ritual slaughter; and animal personhood.

The Journal of Comparative and Contemporary Law is published annually at the Faculty of Law of Thompson Rivers University, in Kamloops, British Columbia. Animal Justice applauds this tremendous contribution to Canadian animal law scholarship, and the recognition that animal law is an important field in its own right. With judges and legislators increasingly considering animal law cases and legislation, there is no doubt that the field will only continue to gain traction and make gains for vulnerable animals.

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