Speaker:

Paul Waldau

Course Objectives: The primary goals and objectives of this compelling, 1.5 hour MCLE Audio program are as follows

Engage the spirit, substance and principles of existing law as it addresses nonhuman animals.

Develop a sense of the many different traditions that contribute to legal and other understandings of nonhuman animals, especially as these traditions affect how we conceptualize and frame legal protections with which court systems and lawyers must work.

Grasp the complex debates about "animal law" and "animal rights" now common in 21st century policy discussions.

Assess future possibilities of using various legal concepts and tools, such as rights, legal personhood and "standing, to address the relationship of humans to living beings outside the human species.

Program Description:

This program addresses how legal systems encounter the animals outside our own species. It introduces the most basic topics that fall naturally under the general heading "animal law," including generally the extent to which legal systems, specific cases, legislation, and background cultural values impact ways in which judges, administrators, politicians, lawyers, law students, legal scholars, and lay people think about animals other than humans. It focuses on the most noteworthy changes now found in the substantive areas of tort law, wills and trusts, family law, and criminal law and the issue of standing, and summarizes the most general differences in the "animal law" now in place regarding companion animals (some will use the word "pets" for this area), research animals, food animals, and wildlife. It also includes Paul Waldau’s observations regarding language about animals, controversy about "animal rights," and the versatility of law in dealing with the lives outside our own species.

Materials: 31 pages

The written materials provide a general outline of the program, as well as various background materials and citations. Whenever a quote is used in the lecture, the entire quote is included in these written materials along with sufficient bibliographic information to locate the passage cited

$75 to order