Animals and the Law (LAW253H1F):
This course, taught by Professor Angela Fernandez, analyzes the history of the legal treatment of different kinds of nonhuman animals, asking throughout about the limits of a sentient or living property concept when its objects are also subjects with some (albeit weak) legal rights. Topics to be explored include federal anti-cruelty protection and provincial welfare legislation in Canada, the persons v. property debate and emerging alternatives to it, Indigenous perspectives on nonhuman animals and how a history of conflict with the animal rights movement can be recreated in cooperative terms, wild animals (in and not in captivity), fish and other aquatic animals given the special considerations they raise, recent “ag gag” legislation in Canada, and “clean meat” and other game-changers that will make it possible to move away from relying on nonhuman animals for food.
The course has been offered every year for the past four years, with about forty students enrolled per year.
Animal Law Seminar: The Laws of Human and Animal Relations (LAW327H1F)
This seminar, taught by M.H. Tse (2024-2026 Inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow in Animal Law) in the Fall term of 2025, will examine the nature of the human-animal relationship in the context of production and extraction, and the laws that underpin it. One aim of this class is to develop the deceptively simple legal skill of issue framing and diagnosis — or what Wendy Brown and Janet Halley described as the “discernment of how the very problem we want to solve is itself produced.” In our exploration, we will examine the laws and regulations of animal production, which may include reviewing criminal animal cruelty provisions, rules of animal transport and slaughter, and common law property principles as they relate to the human ownership of animals. In examining how the “animal problem” has been framed by various legal scholars and animal advocates, views covered may include animal legal rights theories, theories of personhood and property, and anti-cruelty/animal welfare frameworks. Our review may also include portions of my book manuscript which articulate a new framework for understanding the legal underpinnings of animal extraction as a distinct law of predation.