This program is based on the Section Executive Committee’s assessment of responses to our Call for Papers. Several proposals could be subsumed under this title because they concern differential legal treatment of animals based primarily on human uses of animals. One presenter will approach the subject through the lens of laws pertaining to service animals, who are allowed in settings that other companion animals cannot enter. Another will consider the subject of raising chickens in urban settings in the context of the “locavore” movement. Owners of those chickens are under different constraints than are owners of chickens raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (“factory farms”). A third panelist will discuss differential legal treatment of one type of animal (animals raised for food) in different legal systems, such as the U.S. and Israel. And our fourth panelist approaches the topic from a theoretical standpoint, including questioning whether animal lawyers really need to be as invested in removing the status of property of animals before generating positive reform on their behalf. In addition, our moderator, David Favre, has written several scholarly articles about these subjects, including the question of legal reform without dismantling the legal status of animals as the property of humans.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion.