MSU Law Professor Shares Animal Rights Vision in Globe and Mail
MSU Law Professor David Favre, a well-known advocate for establishing legal status for animals presented his position in the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail [alternate link]. Included in an Opinion article focused on horse welfare, Professor Favre shared his position that animals should have legal rights.
The Opinion piece authored by freelance writer Li Robbins references Professor Favre’s MSU Law Animal Legal and Historical Center and his 2010 article where he proposes a new legal category for animals, Living Property: A New Status for Animals Within the Legal System. “As ‘living property,’ the law could view animals as individual beings and reach legal results that are beneficial to the animal’s personal needs and wants,” Professor Favre said.
Professor Favre’s quote continues, “Some states have advanced the idea (although without Professor Favre’s terminology) by changing divorce laws. In those states, if you and your ex are fighting over who gets the cat, the decision might not rest on who bought the cat, but on who the cat is bonded to and who can best take care of the cat.”
During the interview with the author of the Opinion piece, Professor Favre shared that “all 50 states have changed their trust laws to allow humans to leave money for the benefit of animals alive at the time of the creation of the trust. So, they are in the same legal position as children who are the beneficiaries of the parent-created trust.”
Asked by Ms. Robbins about Canada’s animal law lawyer advocating for “formally recognizing animals as sentient within the legal system and as ‘someones rather than somethings.’” Professor Favre responded “I certainly do not object to recognizing animals as sentient, that is a statement of fact. A number of countries have indeed done this.
“However, the insertion of that phrase by itself does not change any existing law, the animals are still classified as property, so the legal outcomes for the animals do not change,” continued Professor Favre. “Specific laws must be added or modified to see the consequences. I agree that someones (persons) is better than somethings (property) for the animals. But, those words are not in the law; the question is how do you do that.”
Professor Favre leads an international effort promoting animal rights and advocating changes in the law. The Nancy Heathcote Professor of Property and Animal Law, he is one of the foremost legal scholars in the nation on animal rights and law. He is the author of eight books on animal law, has spoken at dozens of conferences around the world on the topic, co-founded the Animal Legal Defense Fund in 1983, and edits the largest animal law website in the world, AnimalLaw.info.