Law

In the United States and around the world, animals exploited for human use suffer cruel and needless harm. The group bearing the brunt of this exploitation—agricultural animals—is routinely exempted from the largely ineffective and rarely enforced animal welfare and anti-cruelty regulations that exist today. This Article offers a comparative analysis of the agricultural animal welfare regimes of two countries with globally significant presence in the agriculture industry: the United States and Brazil. Even though the two countries approach agricultural animal welfare differently, they arrive at the same outcome: institutionalized indifference to animal suffering. To remedy the current regulatory structure, this Article proposes the creation of an independent federal agency—The Animal Welfare Agency (“AWA”)—to regulate the safety and welfare of all animals, including those used in agriculture. The AWA could significantly reduce systemic animal cruelty in both the United States and Brazil and represent an important step toward inserting morality and ethics into our relationships with animals.

Over the last sixty years, industrial agriculture has expanded in the United States and throughout the world, including in Brazil. Any benefit this expansion has brought comes at significant environmental and social costs. Industrial agriculture is a leading contributor to global climate change, air and water pollution, deforestation, and dangers in the workplace. This Article discusses the impact of industrial animal agriculture in the U.S. and Brazil. It also examines the laws pertaining to industrial agriculture in both countries and provides a comparative analysis of the two legal regimes. Finally, this Article concludes with the observation that although the price to the U.S. and Brazil of remedying these impacts are high, the costs to humans, animals, and the environment by failing to do so is immeasurable.

Discussions of animal treatment within the global food industry often devolve into debates about animal rights. Such detours needlessly distract from an ongoing social and environmental catastrophe. This essay attempts to reframe the global food debate in a manner that more directly acknowledges our obligations to and the needs of the billions of animals enslaved within the industrial food apparatus.

Animal sacrifice and religious ritual have intertwined for thousands of years.  The practice remains integral to Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion that has many adherents in the United States, particularly in Florida.  In 1987, when the Santería Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye announced plans to open in Hialeah, Florida, the city reacted by passing a set of ordinances banning animal sacrifice.  The Church sued and the issue of whether the ritual killing of animals constituted protected religious expression eventually made its way to the Supreme Court.  Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v City of Hialeah  asked the Court to resolve two linked constitutional questions: Does the ritual slaughter of animals constitute religious expression protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution? And, if so, (or even if not) may the practice be banned or regulated by the State?
These are difficult questions and the Court’s attempt to answer them raises more questions still.  This chapter examines the Court’s reasoning in the Lukumi case to determine whether it clarified or further clouded the relationship between animal sacrifice and the First Amendment.  It argues that the plurality opinion’s attempt to cast the Hialeah ordinances as underperforming animal protection statutes was both misguided and counterproductive.

... LEGAL STANDING FOR ANIMALS AND ADVOCATES Panelists: David Cassuto, JonathanLovvorn, and Katherine Meyer* Moderator: Joyce Tischler† ... He received his JD from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law. © Jonathan Lovvorn 2006. ...