(Certified) Humane Violence? Animal Production, the Ambivalence of Humanizing the Inhumane, and What International Humanitarian Law Has to Do with It

The chapter draws a comparison with the self-certifying of production methods as ‘humane’ or animal-friendly in the labelling of animal products—that is, according to companies’ own self-imposed codes of conduct. It likens the idea of humanizing animal slaughter, factory farms, and other forms of production to the notion of humanizing warfare. Like international humanitarian law (IHL), animal welfare law is marked by the tension inherent in its attempt to humanize innately inhumane practices. Given these parallels, the analysis of animal welfare law might benefit from existing insights into the potential and limits of IHL. Both areas of law endorse a principle of ‘humanity’ while arguably facilitating and legitimizing the use of violence, and might thereby ultimately perpetuate the suffering of living beings. The implicit justification of violence percolating from the IHL-like animal ‘protection’ laws could only be outweighed by complementing this body of law with a ius contra bellum for animals

A sustainable campus: The Sydney Declaration on interspecies sustainability

Under the remit of an expanded definition of sustainability – one that acknowledges animal agriculture as a key carbon intensive industry, and one that includes interspecies ethics as an integral part of social justice – institutions such as Universities can and should play a role in supporting a wider agenda for sustainable food practices on campus. By drawing out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products, the objective of this article is to advocate for a more consistent understanding and implementation of sustainability measures as championed by university campuses at large. We will draw out clear connections between sustainability objectives on campus and the shift away from animal based products. Overall, our arguments are contextualised within broader debates on the relationship between sustainability, social justice and interspecies ethics. We envisage that such discussion will contribute to an enriched, more robust sense of sustainability—one in which food justice refers not only to justice for human consumers and producers of food and the land used by them, but also to justice for the nonhuman animals considered as potential sources of food themselves

Episode 116: The War Against Animals with Dinesh Wadiwel

This week on Knowing Animals we are joined by Dr. Dinesh Wadiwel. Dinesh is a senior lecturer in human rights and socio-legal studies at the University of Sydney. We discuss Dinesh’s monograph ‘The War Against Animals’ which was published by Brill in 2015

Institutional Violence Against People with Disability: Recent Legal and Political Developments

International and Australian domestic evidence suggest that the prevalence of violence against people with disability is substantially higher than for the rest of the community. Much of the violence experienced by people with disability in Australia occurs within the purview of a variety of institutions, including group homes, large residential institutions, Australian Disability Enterprises (that is, disability employment facilities), schools, psychiatric facilities, hospitals and correctional facilities. This comment discusses recent domestic and international legal and political attempts to grapple with the issue of institutional violence against people with disability, focusing in particular on a series of Senate Committee inquiries into abuse and violence, regulation related to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the coming into force of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Australia’s anticipated ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and recent calls by Disability People’s Organisations and academics for a Royal Commission into violence against people with disability