Closing the Loopholes?
With much fanfare, the government launched an animal welfare amendment bill earlier this year. You may remember our scepticism. Now, with much less fanfare, Sue Kedgley MP’s clumsily-titled private members bill, the Animal Welfare Amendment (Treatment of Animals) Bill has been balloted to receive its first reading in September.
So, what does she hope to do? Read more…
Loving the Animal Law Vibe in Dunedin
Just got back from Dunedin, where last night I gave a guest lecture as part of Animal Law week, a production of the Student Animal Legal Defence Fund (SALDF) chapter recently established at the University of Otago – the first ever Chapter outside of North America.
It was a hell of an experience, and one I enjoyed immensely. After years struggling to get a viable student group working at Auckland, it was refreshing to see a student-created group with so much focus and vigour – and so much concern for animal law issues. In addition to my talk, the Otago group has set up a whole week of seminars, stalls and discussions, many of them student led and researched. Quite a feat, especially when you consider that animal law has never been taught at Otago – and is not currently on the agenda.
The talk itself went well, and I received some wonderful feedback. A packed house learned about the animal welfare construct and why it fails animals, and we continued talking afterwards as well. I was pleased to hear that this SALDF chapter is planning to host further events through the year, and with the support of the Otago administration, an animal law course might not be far off.
It goes to show what students can do when they put their minds to it. As Margaret Mead once sagely wrote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I couldn’t agree more. This small group of students committed to learning more about animal law issues has really stirred things up at Otago. I must confess that the only sad thought arising from this was how the same thing has not progressed at Auckland, where I teach. Despite considerable effort from myself and one or two others, SOLVE currently lies dormant – aside from The Solution, of course – because we weren’t able to get that “small group of thoughtful, committeed people together with a vision to get matters moving on the agenda.
There will be at least one SOLVE event this year, however, and I plan to organize it. Late in September, we will show excerpts of FOOD Inc. at the Faculty, and follow it up with a moderated panel discussing the relevance of the issues raised.
I’m going to go continue reflecting upon the wonderful work of those students down in Otago. I wish you all the best for the rest of the week – and let’s hope this is the beginning of a lot more to come. Thanks for having me out!
By the way, I’ve finally joined the revolution and now Tweet about all things animal law. If you wish to check out what I can say in 140 characters or less, click here and follow me!
Making an Impact
A new book on animal law was recently published and launched in Australia. Animal Law in Australia and New Zealand, by Deborah Cao – with chapters by Katrina Sharman and Steven White – is the latest book on animal law to be published in this part of the world. I haven’t yet had a comprehensive read, but the book seems to be a good treatment of the laws governing animals in this part of the world – a much needed reference work that will allow people to continue critiquing the status quo.
The book was launched by Michael Kirby during the Voiceless Animal Law Lecture Series, featuring Joyce Tischler, of the Animal Legal Defence Fund. I was particularly struck by his remarks, a section of which I’ve reproduced below (full text available at the Sydney Morning Herald):
A year ago I launched a book that changed my life. It was Animal Law in Australasia. After reading it, I immediately ceased eating meat.
For more than a year, I have eaten neither flesh nor fowl. My diet is vegetarian, with a little fish. After nearly 70 years as a carnivore, this was a big change in my habits and eating pleasures. My partner, Johan van Vloten, told friends: ”It’s another fad. He’ll get over it.” But I have not and will not.
The book contained too much information. I could no longer pretend I did not know how sentient animals were slaughtered. No longer could I trick my mind into believing that meat and chicken pieces, so neatly wrapped in plastic or beautifully served on white plates, were the impersonal products of sterile, clean supermarkets. I was distressed at my earlier indifference and indirect participation in a huge industry of corporatised killing of sentient creatures…
Most people in Australia and New Zealand never think about these issues. Eating meat and poultry has been part of their lives for generations. They feel no guilt because they take no part in the slaughter. When they think about it (which is rarely), they assume the law lays down basic standards…
Animal welfare law has been introduced in a journey that commenced with protection for companion animals; spread to a prohibition on senseless cruelty in sporting, circus and entertainment animals; and more recently has extended to the treatment of farm, exported and wild animals, and those in corporations and laboratories subjected to testing for human protection…
A growing body of university students, most in law faculties, are electing to undertake courses in animal welfare law. Already, such courses are offered in six Australian law schools. More are on the horizon. What not so long ago was regarded as an exotic topic of limited interest is now a fast-growing curriculum subject with a real legal dimension.
Why has this happened? Why has it happened now? In part, it is because writers such as Singer rekindled the ideas of earlier thoughtful observers and planted them in the mind of contemporary Australasia. In part, this has happened because cruelty to animals happens in our midst and, as a community, we are responsible for it.
All good stuff. Kirby has been a real leader in this area, constantly speaking his mind on behalf of animals, getting good press coverage on the issues, and reminding people that animal law is no fad; thinking people can be convinced about the dangers of allowing the existing status quo to go unrestrained.
I must confess that on a personal note, the first sentence made me blush, at least a little bit. I created Animal Law in Australasia for two purposes: (1) to get people to think about their own actions; and (2) to get the ball rolling on more advanced critique of how animals are treated in Australasia. Kirby’s speech told me that both objectives were in the process of being realized, and that’s enough to keep a smile on my face all day.
Next week, I’m attending Animal Law week at the University of Otago as a guest speaker. The first ever New Zealand chapter of the Animal Legal Defence Fund has put together a wonderful program of events intended to bring “animal law” to the masses and show how interesting the subject really is – and how important the issues are. Just goes to show what can be done once a spark is lit – and how momentum for change in the legal community continues to grow.
Vegan politics
UPDATE: An interview with Laraque explaining how he became vegan.
Great news from Canada, where former professional hockey player Georges Laraque has become perhaps Canada’s first vegan politician, joining the Green Party, which over the past five years has been growing in size and stature. Laraque makes no bones about what his priorities are: “promoting the link between physical health and the environment”, which sounds a lot like educating people about veganism to me.
It’s refreshing to see vegans coming forth in all areas of public life. Again, while many refuse to admit it, veganism is still regarded by many in mainstream society with confusion, derision and fear. Electing those with vegan views to public office is just one way of getting over the many stereotypes existing about this way of life. And as I’ve said in many posts, more vegans is the most direct way to changing society’s view about animals.
Amazing that – and please correct me if I’m wrong – we are still waiting for New Zealand’s first “out” vegan politician. It’s no small feat, believe me, and the person who achieves that designation will face many of the same prejudices and stereotypes as our first gay politician, our first transgender politician and others of similar disadvantaged groups. Take it from the first vegan member to ever grace Auckland’s law faculty. It takes time to break down doors of discrimination and get people to see that vegans are “people too”; just people with a different view of the importance of avoiding the consumption of animals and animal products.
Pig Farmers: The NZ Pork Industry Board Is Keeping Your Secrets Safe Tonight
And these are the crates they'll let us see...
The nationwide furore over the conditions in which pigs are intensively farmed has finally prompted voluntary audits of conditions in piggeries around Aotearoa New Zealand.
Today, a leaked email was released in which the New Zealand Pork Industry Board, a statutorily-created entity, is shown attempting to develop a legal strategy to avoid the results of those audits being made public. To quote the Dominion Post:
The leaked email, sent to farmers on behalf of the Pork Industry Board, said: “It is likely there will be a number of farms requiring corrective actions and … those actions could cause embarrassment to the farmer if made public and could cause embarrassment to the industry if used by animal welfarists, [so] some alternatives to current procedures were put forward.”
A suggested alternative would mean only the farmer and auditor would hold “completed documentation”, with the board notified of pass, fail, or “pending corrective actions (unspecified).”
Board chief executive Sam McIvor said its legal advice suggested the audit report would belong to the farmer, meaning it was personal information.
Some very serious questions need to be asked of a statutory body – albeit one that is mostly funded by farmers – that considers protecting piggery owners from “embarrassment” justification for its connivance to avoid a general obligation under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) to make information ‘held’ by them available to the public.
In any event, this tactic will simply not work. The Pork Industry Board is listed in the schedule to the OIA and section 2(5) of the Act is clear that “official information” includes:
Any information held by an independent contractor engaged by any department or Minister of the Crown or organisation in his capacity as such contractor shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be held by the department or Minister of the Crown or organisation.
Mr McIvor goes further to say that a balance has to be struck between the interests of farmers and the interests of the public:
He said the board wanted to be accountable to pork-buying customers, but most customers did not care about farm conditions, just whether they had passed a minimum standard. “There does have to be some trust and the customers need to be able to trust us that we have the processes in place.”
Indeed. The kind of trust that holds so long as you don’t ask any embarrassing questions.
Leaving aside this deft identification of the Board’s constituency as being only “pork-buying customers”, it is statements such as these that lay bare the true issue: It is not privacy, it is certainly not animal health, it is secrecy. Secrecy that allows an industry with some demonstrably cruel operators to continue to avoid public scrutiny of their profiting from the suffering of animals.
A report on the current review is due next week. We’ll keep you updated.
Catalonia Bans Bullfighting
Spain’s Catalonian regional parliament has banned bullfighting in a vote of 68 – 55 with nine abstaining.
It is the second Spanish region after the Canary Islands (which banned bullfighting in 1991) to outlaw the practice and the first on the mainland.
Bullfighting is a brutal spectacle in which the torture and death of the bull is the end of a life-long process of abuse and mistreatment (I’ve written on this in more detail here) and this is a significant victory for a coalition of Catalonian animal rights groups called “Prou!” meaning “Enough!” They initated the vote by submitting a 180 000-signature petition calling for a ban.
The vote was not a cut-and-dry animal welfare issue as the rejection of this emblematically Spanish tradition is also widely interpreted as animated by separatist sentiment. Of Spain’s semi-autonomous regions, Catalunya has the greatest degree of autonomy along with the Basque region. It has even been suggested that the vote was calculated in last-minute lobbying as retaliation for a recent decision from Spain’s Constitutional court which has curtailed some of the proudly-independent region’s autonomy in law-making.
This is an exciting advance made against one of the most tradition-bound forms of animal suffering. The commercial significance of the ‘sport’ falls far short of that in the Spanish capital of Madrid and Andalucia to the South, when the law comes into effect in 2012 it will close Barcelona’s last remaining bullring, La Monumental. This may limit the spread of the ban to the other regions.
But there is still work to do. Activists have now set their sights on a ban on the Correbous, an annual festival in the region in which flaming torches and even fireworks are fastened to the bulls’ horns and they are set loose, frightened, disoriented and often suffering burns, to run around an enclosure for the amusement of onlookers.
Guest Post: The Australian Whaling Claim
by William Fotherby
Will is a graduate of the University of Auckland and a solicitor at Bell Gully. In 2008, he was one of the editors-in-chief of the Auckland University Law Review.
Australia has taken its campaign to end Japanese whaling to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Australian statement of claim, dated 31 May 2010, alleges that Japan is in breach of its obligations under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW). It seeks an order revoking any permits by which Japan has conducted scientific whaling in the Antarctic and assurances from Japan that it will not conduct similar activities in the future. New Zealand, among other countries, has indicated that it will look seriously at joining this court action. This, after attempts to reach a political solution at the IWC’s annual meeting, in Agadir, Morocco, failed. Read more…
Scientising Whale Slaughter
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The announcement of the first whale death (cetaceacide) from the Shell Deep Horizon oil spill proved an ominous portent ahead of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Whaling is one of the more politicised areas of animal law, in which passions and national identity run high. There are only 3 countries that currently allow commercial whaling, a minority trend which often leads to racialised politics. New Zealanders tend to think of it as a non-negotiable issue, up there with bans on nuclear power and weaponry, and genetic engineering.Whaling is one of New Zealand’s oldest industries and much of the earliest colonial experience was comprised of contact between Maori and Pakeha whaling and sealing crews. This era of New Zealand’s colonial history centred on Kororareka, by the 1830s it was the largest whaling port in the Southern Hemisphere, popularly known as the “Hell-hole of the Pacific“. Our domestic whaling industry collapsed in 1964, and in resuming our membership in the IWC the NZ government issued the uncompromising view that “…whales should not be killed even if it could be shown that whaling does not threaten the existence of the species.” This proclamation was backed by the declaration of an international moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982, coming into effect in 1986. However, a new approach has been mooted in light of the previous failures to agree at the IWC, a compromise approach (reducing the total number of whales slaughtered) that envisions an eventual cultural transformation. Labour MP Chris Carter has been extremely critical of the limited commercial whaling promoted by the Key administration, despite recent suggestions that Carter and Phil Goff had engaged in diplomatic negotiations along the same terms. Amidst this mess, Foreign Minister Murray McCully and Sir Geoffrey Palmer spent the week in Agadir, Morocco, attempting to reach an agreement, despite McCully’s fears that the IWC is presiding over a return of “anarchy” to the high seas. Read more…
