Photo of Camille Labchuk courtesy of Animal Justice
University of Toronto alumna Camille Labchuk (JD 2012) cares deeply for animals. The news images of the commercial seal killings left an indelible impression on her as a child, while growing up on Canada’s eastern coast.
“Years later, I was working in Ottawa, in politics, and had an opportunity to go with a non-profit to the ice floes to monitor and film the seal hunt, and use those images,” says Labchuk, a graduate of U of T’s Faculty of Law.
“This led the European Union to ban commercial seal products from entering its borders, which helped reduce the East Coast seal hunt and saved hundreds of thousands of baby seals from being brutally killed.”
Inspired by her political colleagues and other animal advocates, she chose to pursue a law degree at U of T to advance her interest in animal advocacy.
She now serves as executive director of Animal Justice, a non-profit fighting for animals in court, pushing for stronger animal protection laws, and ensuring current laws are enforced. Earlier this year, Animal Justice intervened in the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) case, British Columbia v. Council of Canadians with Disabilities, testing public interest standing – whether a public interest group could litigate on behalf of an individual.
“We wanted to make the point that animals can't bring cases and claims on their own as individuals because they don't have legal standing. Their only way to access to the justice system is to rely on groups like Animal Justice and others, to bring those claims forward. The Court reinforced that broadly construing public interest standing is important for many marginalized groups.”
“We have partnered with U of T for the last few years. The conference was supposed to be in-person in 2020, so we’re thrilled to finally be getting a chance to all gather,” says Labchuk, who adds a U.S. conference has been around for decades, so her organization thought it was important to bring the exchange of ideas to Canada.
“The conference is open to anyone – lawyers who practice in the field – including those who may have a small pro bono side practice – folks who want to get into the field, new law graduates, and law students who run clubs devoted to animal law, as well as those involved in advocacy.”
“Ag Gag refers to a set of laws that first popped up in the U.S., designed to cover up animal cruelty on farms,” explains Labchuk. “A common theme of these laws is shutting down the ability to share information, such as banning photos and videos from inside farms or slaughterhouses or making it illegal to do undercover work on farms. In Canada, we escaped Ag Gag for a long time, but the farm industry finally started pushing for these laws in 2019.”
September 16 will kick-off with a set of scholars track presentations, the — North American Animal Law Conference — funded by the U.S.-based Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy.
”When people think about Indigenous rights versus animal rights, they think about people who want to protect animals and how that conflicts with hunting or fishing rights,” explains his U of T Law colleague Angela Fernandez, the faculty’s leading animal law researcher, who has previously received the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Teaching Award from the Students’ Law Society (SLS) and the Indigenous Law Students’ Association (ILSA), by including Indigenous perspectives, topics, and law as part of her course content.
“What we're really trying to do, is advance the conversation and get people to think about what points of similarity and synchronicity might be. For instance, looking at legislation where animals are being viewed in the way that Indigenous Peoples view them: as beings, worthy of respect. How could that work with Western settler, colonial ideas and approaches, which currently give little or no protections for animals?”
Fernandez, who applies a historical framework to her study of the law and is cross-appointed to the department of history in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science, has seen a surge of interest in her animal law course, with nearly 50 students registered both last year and this fall.
Some of the most prominent names in the field are U of T law alumni, including Maneesha Deckha (JD 1998), Director of the Animals and Society Research Initiative at the University of Victoria; University of Alberta Faculty of Law Professor Peter Sankoff (JD 1996) and his colleague, Jessica Eisen (JD 2009), an assistant professor; Katie Sykes (JD 2002), an associate professor at Thompson Rivers University's Faculty of Law. Current alumni working in the field include Scott Tinney (JD 2018), who works alongside Labchuk at Animal Justice, and Labcuk's classmate, Marty McKendry (JD 2012), who works on animal protection laws that have originated in recent years as a senior advisor on parliamentary strategy for the Offices of Senators Pierre Dalphond and Marty Klyne.
Many of the conference’s presenters and participants have also completed a JD or graduate work at U of T, including Man Ha (M.H.) Tse (LLM 2015), now a doctoral candidate in the animal law program at Harvard Law School.
Deckha will be commenting on a scholar’s track presentation by Kristen Stilt and Macarena Montes Franceschini of the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School on animal law and the Rights of Nature.
In Fernandez's scholar track presentation, “Animals as Property, Quasi-Property or Quasi-Person”, she focuses on terminology that challenges the traditional distinction between property and persons for nonhuman animals, arguing that this needs to be thought about as a continuum rather than an either/or binary.
She says even though animals are legally property, we can find ways in which we treat them as being different from property.
“For instance, you can make a trust for your pet after you die to make sure that there's money there so they can be taken care of. There's no other equivalent property where you would be able to do that.
“I gather all these instances to say, well then, legally, aren't we saying that animals are more than property, or they’re special property?
Her paper was published in the Animal Law Fundamentals series organized by the Brooks Institute, also a CALC conference platinum sponsor.
Fernandez is an invited member of BASAN – the Brooks Animal Studies Academic Network – spearheading projects and collaborations between animal law researchers in the U.S. and Canada.
A highlight of this year’s conference will be a virtual keynote by world-renowned philosopher, Martha C. Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund distinguished service professor of law and ethics. Her book, Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach, lays out a philosophical approach for humans to live their best lives, which she’ll discuss in application to animals.
“Her presence at this conference is really significant for the field,” says Fernandez.
