Animal Rights Advocate Speaking In Auckland

12 April 2007 Media release

Animal Rights Advocate Speaking In Auckland

"Are non-human animals entitled to fundamental common law rights?"

This is the question which Steven Wise, an American legal scholar and activist who specialises in animal rights, will be asking in a public lecture at The University of Auckland early next month.

Wise will be introduced by Peter Sankoff, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law, who teaches animal law, and who established the first permanent LLB course of this type ever offered in the Southern Hemisphere.

Wise will suggest that designating animals as property is as anachronistic a practice as human slavery, and the time has come to recognise some animals as beings with rights capable of being protected and enforced at common law. His lecture will focus on groundbreaking legal research he has conducted on the Great Apes.

A pioneer in the field who is described by USA Today as "America's best known animal rights lawyer", Wise has practised animal law in courts throughout the United States since 1981. He established the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights which seeks to expand such rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty to nonhuman animals, beginning with chimpanzees, through litigation and education.

Wise has also taught on animal rights law at prestigious American law schools including Harvard, Vermont, Lewis and Clark, St Thomas and John Marshall.

He is the author of three books: Rattling the Cage - Toward Legal Rights for Animals (2000), Drawing the Line - Science and the Case for Animal Rights (2002) and And Though the Heavens May Fall - The Landmark Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery (2005). Currently he is working on a book about farmed animals.

These books are written for the public at large, says Peter Sankoff. "They render complicated legal issues accessible to a wide audience and should be read by anyone interested in how animals are treated in our society.

"Steven asks a lot of provocative questions in his books — and in his lectures. He will certainly get people thinking about the existing legal regime, and how unfair it is to animals."

What: Public Lecture: "Are non-human animals entitled to fundamental common law rights?" Date: Monday 7 May Time: 7.15pm Place: Stone Lecture Theatre, School of Law, 9 Eden Crescent

ENDS

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