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Animal Law Research Guide: Getting Started: Suggested Readings

The Animal Law Research Guide provides guidance for students researching animal law and advocacy, as well as the discussion of animals in the fields of philosophy, cultural studies, gender and women's studies, environmental studies, and literary theory.

Suggested Readings for Those New to Animal Law

Students researching animal law and related issues will find a wealth of material in the extant literature. The material referenced in the selected bibliography below is intended to provide a starting place for researchers new to the concept of animal law research. The material is organized by several common concepts prevalent in the animal law literature, and two or more sources are suggested under each concept as suggested reading for the concept. Please note that the list of concepts provided below is not intended to be exhaustive; there are many themes addressed in animal law jurisprudence and scholarship, and researchers are encouraged to consult the works noted on our Animal Law Books page for references to additional materials.

The concepts covered in this section of the Guide include the following. You may click on the links here to be taken directly to the relevant portion of the selected bibliography:

  1. Property Status of Animals: Pets, Property, or Persons?
  2. Rights versus Welfare Debate
  3. Standing: Access to the Courts
  4. Factory Farmed Animals
  5. Animal Cruelty and the First Amendment
  6. Animals and Philosophy
  7. Animals and Domestic Disputes
  8. Animals and Women's Studies
  9. The Study and Practice of Animal Law

To the left of this box, under the Guide Outline, you may find a box titled "Got Links?" Please help make this Guide better by suggesting any readings that you think will help your fellow researchers. Thank you!

Suggested Readings by Concept

1. Property Status of Animals: Pets, Property, or Persons?

Taimie L. Bryant, Sacrificing the Sacrifice of Animals: Legal Personhood for Animals, the Status of Animals as Property, and the Presumed Primacy of Humans, 39 Rutgers Law Journal 247 (2007) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

David Favre, Equitable Self-Ownership for Animals, 50 Duke Law Journal 473 (2000) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Gary L. Francione, Reflections on Animals, Property, and the Law and Rain Without Thunder, 70 Law & Contemporary Problems 9 (2007) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Susan J. Hankin, Not a Living Room Sofa: Changing the Legal Status of Companion Animals, 4 Rutgers Journal of Law & Public Policy 314 (2007) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Rebecca J. Huss, Valuing Man's and Woman's Best Friend: The Moral and Legal Status of Companion Animals, 86 Marquette Law Review 47 (2002) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

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2. Rights versus Welfare Debate

Carl Cohen & Tom Regan, THE ANIMAL RIGHTS DEBATE (2001) (HV4711 .C63 2001).

William A. Edmundson, Do Animals Need Rights?, Journal of Political Philosophy (2014 (PDF available on Wiley Online Library, UC Only).

Gary L. Francione, Animal Welfare and the Moral Value of Nonhuman Animals, 6 Law, Culture & the Humanities 24 (2010) (PDF available on Sage Complete , UCLA Only.

Gary L. Francione, Animal Rights and Animal Welfare, 48 Rutgers Law Review 397 (1996) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Gary L. Francione, INTRODUCTION TO ANIMAL RIGHTS: YOUR CHILD OR THE DOG? (2000) (HV4764 .F72 2000).

Martha C. Nussbaum, Animal Rights: The Need for a Theoretical Basis, 114 Harvard Law Review 1506 (2001) (PDF availble in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Cass R. Sunstein, The Rights of Animals, 70 University of Chicago Law Review 387 (2003) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

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3. Standing: Access to the Courts

Cass R. Sunstein, Standing for Animals, 47 UCLA Law Review 1333 (2000) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Legal Standing for Animals and Advocates, 13 Animal Law 61 (2006) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

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4. Factory Farmed Animals

David N. Cassuto, Bred Meat: The Cultural Foundation of the Factory Farm, 70 Law & Contemporary Problems 59 (2007) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

David N. Cassuto, Environment, Ethics, and the Factory Farm, 54 South Texas Law Review 579 (2013) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Gary L. Francione, Animals, Property, and Legal Welfarism: "Unnecessary" Suffering and the "Humane" Treatment of Animals, 46 Rutgers Law Review 721 (1994) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Jeff Leslie & Cass R. Sunstein, Animal Rights Without Controversy, 70 Law & Contemporary Problems 117 (2007) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only)

Peter Singer, Down on the Factory Farm, in ANIMAL LIBERATION 95-158 (1991 ed.) (HV4708 .S56 1991).

Mariann Sullivan & David J. Wolfson, What's Good for the Goose . . . the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Future of Farmed Animals in the United States, Law & Contemporary Problems 139 (2007) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

Jeff Welty, Humane Slaughter Laws, 70 Law & Contemporary Problems 175 (2007) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

David J. Wolfson, Beyond the Law: Agribusiness and the Systemic Abuse of Animals Raised for Food or Food Production, 2 Animal Law 123 (1996) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

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5. Animal Cruelty and the First Amendment

David. N. Cassuto, Animal Sacrifice and the First Amendment: The Case of Lukumi Babalu Aye, in ANIMAL LAW AND THE COURTS: A READER (Taimie L. Bryant et al. eds., 2008) (KF3841 .B79 2008).

United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460 (2010) (PDF of slip opinion).

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6. Animals and Philosophy

P. Atterton & Matthew Calarco eds., ANIMAL PHILOSOPHY: ESSENTIAL READINGS IN CONTINENTAL THOUGHT (2004) (B105.A55 A55 2004)

Jacques Derrida, THE ANIMAL THAT THEREFORE I AM (Marie-Louise Mallet ed., 2008) (B2430.D483 A5513 2008).

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7. Animals and Domestic Disputes

Carol J. Adams, Bringing Peace Home: A Feminist Philosophical Perspective on the Abuse of Women, Children, and Pet Animals, 9 Hypatia 63 (1994) (PDF available on JSTOR, UC Only).

Rebecca J. Huss, Separation, Custody, and Estate Planning Issues Relating to Companion Animals, 74 University of Colorado Law Review 181 (2003) (PDF available in HeinOnline, UCLA Only).

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8. Animals and Women's Studies

Josephine Donovan, Animal Rights and Feminist Theory, 15 Signs 350 (1990) (PDF available on JSTOR, UC Only).

Carol J. Adams, Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals, 6 Hypatia 125 (1991) (PDF available on JSTOR, UC Only).

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9. The Study and Practice of Animal Law

Taimie L. Bryant, Trauma, Law, and Advocacy for Animals, 1 Journal of Animal Law and Ethics 62 (2006) (PDF).

Taimie L. Bryant, American Law: Legal Recognition of Animals' Capacity to Experience Pain, in Animal Suffering: From Science to Law 259-273 (Thierry Auffret Van Der Kemp and Martine Lachance, eds., 2013) (PDF).

David Favre, Twenty Years and Change, 20 Animal Law 7 (2013) (PDF available on HeinOnline, UC Only).

Thomas G. Kelch, A Short History of (Mostly) Western Animal Law: Part I, 19 Animal Law 23 (2012) (PDF available on HeinOnline, UC Only).

Thomas G. Kelch, A Short History of (Mostly) Western Animal Law: Part II, 19 Animal Law 347 (2013) (PDF available on HeinOnline, UC Only).

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