An interview with Claire Bass: the animal welfare wish list for 2024

Ankita Shanker, founder of WMILAR kindly talks to us about her vision for the World's 1st Global Moot Competition & Moot Training Courses on Animal Rights Law. As the website explains, 'The WMILAR combines traditional aspects of International Law (including but not limited to International Human Rights Law and International Environmental Law) with contemporary issues of animal rights. It does so through a mooting competition aimed at law students, and a 2-pronged training course aimed at law students and law teachers.'  

What is on the agenda for animal law and policy in Scotland? Guest host, Alison Burns talks to Kirsty Jenkins, Policy Officer at OneKind about their campaign to 'Stand up for pigs' centred around the use of farrowing crates, the National Good Food Nation Plan for Scotland and it's potential to drive up animal welfare standards and much more. 

In this episode, we speak to Stefan Blakiston Moore and Madison Rogers from the national charity, Cats Protection about their work advocating for cats in law and policy, alongside their education and welfare programmes. Drawing upon the 'Cats and Their Stats 2023' report, published by the charity, we learn about the current welfare landscape for cats and the needs and challenges faced by their keepers. We cover the rise of selective breeding and unethical importation of cats into the UK, the trend in pedigree cat ownership, new mandatory microchipping of cats, coming into force in June 2024, the renters market and much more.

In this episode we speak to Claire Bass, Senior Director of Campaigns and Public Affairs at Humane Society International-UK, who has been working in the animal protection movement for two decades, with recent significant involvement in the successful passage of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act. Claire outlines her New Year's wishlist for animals in 2024, from ending the cage age for farmed animals to wildlife crime and more. 

In this episode we welcome guests, Dr Roshni Ladny and Erin Leach to explore research about the potential impact upon children of witnessing violence towards animals. We discuss this research with our guests in the context of General Comment 26 published by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child's (CRC), which implicitly recognises (as part of a broader statement about the impact upon children of the climate crisis, loss of biodiversity and exposure to pollution) the negative impact that witnessing violence inflicted on animals can have on children and conversely the positive benefits for children of interacting with animals as part of the natural world. 

This extended episode is co-hosted with Tamara Bedic, President of the National Lawyers Guild NYC (2022) and Chair of the NLGNYC Animal Rights Committee, and features three prominent guests talking about veganism and how it engages fundamental human rights across the UK, Germany and Italy. We hear from Dr. Jeanette Rowley and Dr. Carlo Prisco, co-editors of Law and Vegansism: International Perspectives on the Human Right to Freedom of Conscience (2022) and Ralf Muller-Amenitsch.  Dr. Jeanette Rowley holds a PhD in veganism and human rights and has published widely and presenting globally on the subject of legal protection for vegans. Dr. Carlo Prisco is a lawyer and PhD in Philosophy of Law and Ralf Müller-Amenitsch is a German lawyer specialising in labour, social and family law. 

In this episode we discuss the capture and slaughter of fish in commercial fisheries with John Garratt,  co-author of a paper with Dr Steven McCulloch 'Wild Fish Welfare in UK Commercial Sea Fisheries: Qualitative Analysis of Stakeholder Views'. This is a deep dive into fish welfare during the capture and killing processes, exploring opportunities for law reform and how measures to protect fish welfare can support other objectives. 

In this episode, we discuss the legal protection of farmed fish with Amro Hussain, Senior Public Affairs Lead at The Humane League. In particular, we focus on the protection of welfare at the time of killing and ask why current legal protections are not sufficient.  

Dr Christina Nellist, B.Ed; Ph.D; FOCAE. Eastern Orthodox Theologian, Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and Editor of Pan Orthodox Concern for Animals, talks about animals and theology. This episode explores how Christian theology has influenced the development of law in the Western hemisphere and how it can help us navigate some of the current dilemas about society's treatment of animals.   

This episode is co-hosted with Tamara Bedic, Chair of the Animal Rights Committee of the New York Guild of Lawyers (New York City division). We are talking about trophy hunting with our guests, Eduardo Goncalves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting in the UK and Professor David Bilchitz,  Professor of Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Johannesburg and Professor of Law at the University of Reading.