What Can Animal Law Learn from Environmental Law? (Environmental Law Institute)

“When either animalists or environmentalists get together and talk about “issues” that are important to them, there is almost no overlap in the topics. There is always the common point, that some humans or corporations are causing the harms they are concerned about, but that is not particularly helpful to solving problems. So the groups go about their good work without reaching out to others, as they seldom share priorities in a world of limited resources.”―From the foreword by David S. Favre, Professor of Law & The Nancy Heathcote Professor of Property and Animal Law, Michigan State University College of Law

This edited volume by Professor Randall S. Abate of Florida A&M University College of Law presents a collection of 17 chapters in an attempt to fill the gap―as illustrated above―between the complex legal issues that matter most to environmental law and animal law movements. Environmental law has a longer history and is more established than its animal law counterpart with intricate layers of international, federal, state, and local laws. Animal law currently faces many of the legal and strategic challenges that environmental law faced in seeking to establish a more secure foothold in U.S. and international law and, as such, stands to gain valuable insights from the lessons of the environmental law movement’s experience in confronting those challenges.

These chapters compare the very different trajectories of the regulatory history of both movements, examining the legal intersections that may exist across them. Prof. Abate draws on the talents of 22 experts in their fields from academia, non-profits, and the legal profession to examine the ways in which animal rights and welfare law can benefit from environmental law. The chapters address various contexts and perspectives from U.S. law, foreign domestic law, and international law on substantive issues including climate change, international trade and the environment, concentrated animal feeding operations, invasive species, lead pollution, and fisheries management, and procedural issues including standing and damages. The book concludes with two chapters that offer a vision for the future regarding how animal law can learn from environmental law and how the two movements can better coordinate their common objectives.

Reviews:
“This is a path-breaking collection of thoughtful essays on the relationship between traditional environmental law and the emerging law of animal rights and welfare. Indeed these closely reasoned accounts show how intertwined are the strands of law that comprise these seemingly disparate fields. In a human dominated world the book is a useful reminder that hubris can lead to catastrophe for all forms of life on earth.”―Patrick Parenteau, Professor of Law, Senior Counsel Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, Vermont Law School

“Professor Abate’s book is an extremely valuable contribution. It’s an excellent compendium of environmental laws and treaties pertinent to animal welfare, as well as lessons that the more developed field of environmental law may present for the emerging field of animal law.”―Dr. Wil Burns
Co-Executive Director, Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment and Chair, Environmental Law Section of the International Law Association

“This book contains a valuable, well-written, and incisive collection of essays by outstanding experts in the fields of environmental and animal law. It deserves a place on the bookshelves of all animal rights and environmental law attorneys and anyone else who believes that our natural surroundings, and the living creatures which inhabit it, deserve to be valued and protected.”―Joel Mintz, Professor of Law, Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center

“Always up for a challenge, Professor Abate has gathered together an impressive group of Animal Law experts and asked them to climb a very steep mountai