Legal Niches

Lust

Posted on April 23, 2010
Seth Victor In college I learned a song. The lyrics of that song are largely unpublishable, but I will share the refrain, which goes, ?Bestiality?s best boys, Bestiality?s best (something unmentionable about a wallaby)!? It was sung in jest, by both guys and gals, and the point was (I hope) to horrify and not to [...

The CAFO Hothouse

Posted on April 22, 2010
David Cassuto The Shameless Self-Promotion Desk kicks into high gear with this from the email: Today, on Earth Day 2010, the Animals and Society Institute is pleased to announce the release of our sixth policy paper, titled “The CAFO Hothouse: Climate Change, Industrial Agriculture and the Law...

The Sin of Pride

Posted on April 21, 2010
Seth Victor I have kindly been invited by Prof. Cassuto to guest blawg for a week while he attends all-night parties in Ipanema furthers the efforts of international law in Brazil with ambition that never fails to make me feel lazy in comparison. For now I hope to interest you with a thematic series of posts...

Wrath

Posted on April 21, 2010
Seth Victor             I did not intend to include wrath as the second sin, though according to Dante I am already out of order by putting pride first. In light of Tuesday?s Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Stevens, I feel that this post is timely.             Wrath is a terrible vice in the context of animal-human [...

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U.S. v. Stevens, The Post-Mortem

Posted on April 21, 2010
David Cassuto There’s little good here.  In Stevens, the Supreme Court struck down a law that aimed at and succeeded in curbing the market for crush videos and other animal mutilation.  To be fair, the law was seriously flawed.  But the Court?s analysis is worse...

U.S. v. Stevens ? The Decision is In

Posted on April 20, 2010
David Cassuto And the result is as expected.  The law goes the way off all things.  I shall have more to say on this shortly.

World Week for Animals ? Making the Case Against Vivisection

Posted on April 19, 2010
David Cassuto We´re in the middle of World Week for Animals, during which people the world over speak out against vivisection.   People often point to the need for animal experimentation to alleviate human suffering.  Putting aside the basic objection to torturing one sentient creature for the benefit of another, the premise lacks foundation...

Cool Job Opening

Posted on April 16, 2010
David Cassuto In case you’re looking… Staff Attorney Location: Washington, D.C. Supervisor: Vice-President, Conservation Law Position Description This position is based in Defenders’ Washington, D.C. National Headquarters office and requires working knowledge of federal environmental and natural resources law and significant litigation experience...

The Return of the Bully Pulpit ? Obama´s Conservation Initiative

Posted on April 16, 2010
David Cassuto Children in the United States spend about half as much time outside as their parents did.  Between 1995 – 2020, more land will be converted to housing in the Chesapeake Bay area than in the previous three and a half centuries.  Theodore Roosevelt is one of Barack Obama´s favorite presidents...

Justice for Sheep

Posted on April 14, 2010
David Cassuto You know those signs in every restaurant bathroom you’ve ever been in that declare it against the law for employees not to wash their hands after using the facilities?  I want to live in a world where such signs are not necessary...

The Puppy, The Huckabee and The Gay Parent

Posted on April 13, 2010
David Cassuto Mike Huckabee says… “I think this is not about trying to create statements for people who want to change the basic fundamental definitions of family. And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults...

Second World Conference on Bioethics and Animal Rights, Salvador Brazil, August 2010

Posted on April 11, 2010
David Cassuto Animal Law is emerging in Brazil thanks to in large part to the efforts of some dedicated folks at the Federal University in Bahia.  Below follows a call for papers for the Second World Conference on Bioethics and Animal Rights which will be held in Salvador this August...

Some Good News in Maryland

Posted on April 09, 2010
David Cassuto The legislature has swum out of the deep end.

Law, Politics, and Maryland

Posted on April 08, 2010
David Cassuto A word on the dust-up at the University of Maryland.  The environmental law clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law has filed suit against some poultry producers alleging that their operations are fouling local rivers and that the runoff is polluting the Chesapeake Bay...

Ocean Acidification and the Clean Water Act

Posted on April 06, 2010
David Cassuto Great post over at Daily Kos about some tentative steps by EPA to regulate greenhouse gases using the Clean Water Act.  Oceans absorb roughly 1/4 of anthropogenic CO2.  The dissolved CO2 then forms carbonic acid, which lowers the pH of the seawater, which then causes (among other things) mass die-off of coral...

EPA Takes on a CAFO and Wins

Posted on April 06, 2010
David Cassuto From the email — some good news from the good people at EPA Region 2.  What I like about this is that EPA is inspecting CAFOS and that it is (at least sometimes) able to use the Clean Water Act as an enforcement mechanism. Administrative Settlement Reached with Large Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation On March 10, [...

Vegetable Protein ? The Untold Story

Posted on April 05, 2010
David Cassuto Why is it so scary that plants have protein?  Even as more and more veggie recipes appear in food sections of newspapers, discussions of plants´protein-rich nature remain conspicuously absent.  This is true even when a nutrition-breakdown accompanies the recipe...

Indian Point Violates the Clean Water Act

Posted on April 04, 2010
David Cassuto From the Finally Smelling the Decaf Desk: NY State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has ruled that the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant (located just north of NYC) violates the Clean Water Act.  The plant’s cooling technology, which has been obsolete for decades, kills so many fish and contaminates so much water that it [...

Looking Within and Without in the Amazon

Posted on April 04, 2010
David Cassuto I’ve returned from the Amazon where a wonderful time was had by all.  This trip — part of the Pace Law School Comparative Environmental Law class – was a complete success.  We saw toucans, caimans, sloths, monkeys, and all kinds of other wonders, including the Meeting of the Waters...

ABA TIPS Animal Law Committee News

Posted on March 28, 2010
David Cassuto Not a lot of blogging from our hero for the next week or so as I am hosting my Pace Law School comparative environmental law class and we are travelling a lot (including to the Amazon).  However, good work is being done and you can read about some of it in the ABA TIPS [...

CITES Folderol Continued

Posted on March 25, 2010
David Cassuto The banner times at the CITES Meeting continue.  No protection for sharks either.  Earlier in the week, delegates declined to protect several key species of coral.  And, of course, let´s not forget last week´s debacle with the bluefin tuna and the polar bear...

Nonfiction Animal Writing Opportunity

Posted on March 25, 2010
David Cassuto   For all you writers and writers-soon to be:   Call for Submissions: Animals  For an upcoming issue, Creative Nonfiction is seeking new essays about the bonds?emotional, ethical, biological, physical, or otherwise?between humans and animals...

Pondering Michael Vick & Grandma´s Turkey

Posted on March 23, 2010
David Cassuto From the Recommended Readings Desk:  This from Sherry Colb over at Dorf on Law – a very thoughtful essay furthering a discussion begun when Gary Francione lectured at Cornell Law School.  Among other queries, the piece explores the relative morality of dog-fighting vs...

Injustice, Texas Style

Posted on March 22, 2010
Bridget Crawford   NPR reports here on the shooting of 51 buffaloes who wandered from one Texas ranch onto another.  NPR reporter Wade Goodwyn missed the irony in a statement by the owner of the ranch whence the buffaloes roamed: “Slaughtering animals, to me, and I think the state feels the same way ? in fact I [...

Dangerous Dog Ordinances Can Be Vicious and Dangerous ? Like People

Posted on March 21, 2010
Bruce Wagman Over the years I have been practicing I have probably handled a dozen cases in which I was hired by the owner-guardians of a dog who had bitten someone, whether that someone was a person or another dog or cat.  These cases seem to be getting more common these days, but that is just [...

RIP: Stewart Udall

Posted on March 20, 2010
David Cassuto Stewart Udall has died.  Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy & Johnson, congressman from Arizona, and architect of many the nation’s most powerful environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Wilderness Act, and others, Udall was a visionary and a politician — a combination rarely seen then or since...

(Another) Bad Week for Polar Bears and Tuna

Posted on March 19, 2010
David Cassuto It?s been quite a week over at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).  Up for discussion was a ban on hunting polar bears and bluefin tuna.  The discussions yielded some predictably (and yet still astonishingly) shortsighted conclusions...

Money Talks When Animals and (Some) People Cannot

Posted on March 19, 2010
Bridget Crawford  The New York Times reported earlier this week  (here) on state legislation under consideration in three jurisdictions.  The proposed laws would allow courts to prohibit animal abusers from having pets in the future.  According to the NYT, 27 states now have similar laws...

Survey Says: 100% Mercury Contaminated Fish

Posted on March 17, 2010
David Cassuto In case you were thinking of celebrating the efficacy of the Clean Air Act and/or the Clean Water Act, consider this: a recent study by the U.S. Geological Service revealed mercury contamination in 100% of the fish tested from 291 freshwater streams in the United States...

Big Macs are Cheap and McNuggets are?

Posted on March 15, 2010
diet food?  Maybe it’s all the Portuguese I’m hearing but it feels like English has stopped making sense.  David Cassuto

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