Canadian Perspectives on Animals and the Law provides an important new contribution to the debate on the legal status and treatment of animals in Canada. Twelve chapters by leading academics and practising lawyers address a range of doctrinal and conceptual questions, situating legal analysis in the broader context of ethical and philosophical debate about justice in human-animal relationships. Topics addressed include the Ikea monkey case, key shortcomings in Canada’s animal cruelty law, the relationship between animal rights and the rights of Canada’s indigenous peoples, and the emergence of animal protection in international law. This volume should be invaluable for scholars, practitioners and students eager to explore these matters in greater depth, and an excellent resource for law school courses on animals and the law.

Peter Sankoff is a Professor at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law who specializes in animal law, criminal law, and the law of evidence. He is the author or editor of six books, including Animal Law in Australasia: A New Dialogue (Federation Press, 2009) and Animal Law in Australasia: Continuing the Dialogue (Federation Press, 2013). Peter has taught a course on Animals and the Law since 2006, and has also taught the subject as an invited visiting professor at Haifa University in Israel, the University of Melbourne in Australia, Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, and the University of Western Ontario. Peter currently sits on the board of advisors of Animal Justice Canada, a group of Canadian legal advocates working on animal law issues, and is also on the editorial board of the Journal of Animal Law and Natural Resources and the Global Journal of Animal Law. In 2008, while teaching at the University of Auckland, he was the recipient of an Assisi Award from the New Zealand Companion Animal Council for his contributions to animal welfare in New Zealand.

Peter Sankoff's profile page

Vaughan Black (LLB, Toronto; LLM, Berkeley) is a professor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, where he has taught for more than thirty years. During that time he has also been the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Transborder Studies at Arizona State University, a visiting scholar at the UCLA School of Law, a visiting professor at the University of Auckland, the James Lewtas Visiting Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School (twice), a lecturer at The Hague Academy of International Law, and the Walter Owen Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. He has served as editor-in-chief of the Dalhousie Law Journal and associate editor of the Canadian Business Law Journal. In addition to numerous law review articles, he has in recent years written Statutory Jurisdiction: The Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act (with Stephen Pitel and Michael Sobkin) (Carswell, 2012) and Foreign Currency Claims in the Conflict of Laws (Hart, 2010).

Vaughan Black's profile page

Katie Sykes (JD, Toronto; LLM, Harvard; LLM, Dalhousie) is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law, Thompson Rivers University, and a JSD candidate at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. From 2002 to 2003, she served as law clerk to the Honorable Justice Louis LeBel of the Supreme Court of Canada, and from 2004 to 2010, she was an associate in the New York office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. She has published on animal law and international law issues in leading journals, including the World Trade Review, the Canadian Yearbook of International Law, and the Animal Law Review.

Katie Sykes' profile page

"Given its relative brevity, the book covers an impressive breadth of subject matter. It provides readers with a large amount of substantive material about domestic and international law. This material is presented in a highly accessible and engaging manner overall. Legal discussion is sufficiently but not unnecessarily technical, and more conceptual material is grounded in current and familiar topics. [ . . . ] This book will be of interest to a varied readership given the wide-ranging implications of this area of law. Developments in animal law have a diverse impact on industry development, international and domestic policy, the agricultural industry, local and international businesses, the charitable sector, the entertainment industry (controversies over the Calgary Stampede come to mind), scientific and medical research, and Aboriginal rights claimants. Animals and the Law is a must-read for legal professionals, academics, and students with interests in these areas and in animal law specifically."

Michelle Korpan, Saskatchewan Law Review 2016, Vol. 79