Law, Animals, and Professors

Tagore Trajano

In early September, I arrived in the U.S again with a new goal, “… pass through the bridge between being a student and being an international Professor”.

At a good teaching university, a professor is expected to be formal, and faraway from his students. However, I had learned that being a good University Professor is to be ready to share the opportunities, and show for his students that all of them have a great path in their lives.

This is one of the lessons that you can pick from David Cassuto’s Law Classes

Powerful Final Day at the Second World Conference on Bioethics and Animal Rights

Elizabeth Bennett

The last day of the Second World Conference on Bioethics and Animal Rights began with a heartfelt lecture by conference organizer Heron Santana on climate change and animal rights. Professor Santana spoke about the fact that citizens of Brazil are beginning to eat more meat and the country exports an increasing amount of live animals, as they used to do with slaves.

He also discussed the health risks associated with eating meat and our ability to decrease meat production by decreasing consumption.  He explained that there is a wall of prejudice against other species that we must break down in order to abolish animal slavery.  Professor Santana concluded by stressing the importance of speaking out for animals and making changes in our daily lives to work toward an end to these violations against nonhuman animals.   

Live From the Second World Conference on Bioethics and Animal Rights in Brazil

Elizabeth Bennett

DAY 1 Ola from the Second World Conference on Bioethics and Animal Rights.  First, I would like to say that I am very thankful that Pace Law School and the Center for Environmental Legal Studies provided me with the opportunity to attend this prestigious and world-renowned conference and for all of the conference organizers’ hard work and hospitality.  As the presentations I have attended thus far have been informative and thought-provoking for me, I will do my best to share my experience with you.

Upon arrival, a symphony was playing.  After introductions and honorariums, Professor David Cassuto of Pace Law School and Director of the Brazil-American Institute for Law and Environment (BAILE) spoke about current trends in environmental law and the animal world.  He discussed the intersection of animal and environmental law and how they often clash, despite the many common grounds upon which they merge.  He went on to discuss the legal framework for protecting animals, distinguishing between animal welfarists and animal rights activists, stating that animal welfarists wish for stronger laws, while animal rights activists believe that humans should not use animals at all.  He also pointed out that in the United States legal system, animals are property and the laws concerning animals regulate relationships between humans about animals.  He made an interesting comparison between the appropriateness of humans making laws on behalf of nonhuman animals and politicians enacting laws on our behalf without truly knowing us, what we desire, or how we would like to be protected.  This comparison comes as an interesting response to doubts about human ability and right to make laws about non-human animals when they do not completely understand what animals want or need.

Professor Cassuto also discussed whether animals can be considered “persons” under the law and how this would change the way we protect them.  This served as a great opening to the Conference, as many of the presentations that followed addressed these questions and dealt with similar issues.

Brazil Anew– The Animal Law Tour

David Cassuto

Our hero heads back to Brazil next week.  First I’ll speak at the International Animal Law Conference in Salvador.   The conference also features a student forum where, I’m delighted to report, Pace 3L, Elizabeth Bennett, will present a paper on factory farming.         

Talking Animals, Climate Change and Agriculture in Sao Paulo

David Cassuto

Today, I gave a talk on industrial agriculture and climate change at the Planeta Verde Conference, the largest environmental law conference in South America and maybe the world.  Instituto O Direito Por Um Planeta Verde (Law for a Green Planet Institute) is a Brazilian NGO founded (I believe) by Antonio Benjamin, a major figure in Brazilian environmental law.  Benjamin is now a Justice on the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (this court has no direct analogue in the U.S.; it resides somewhere between the courts of appeals  and the Supreme Court).  He also manages to be a professor at several law schools both in Brazil and Texas.

I have a few things to report.  First, on a personal note, I currently dwell in a limbic space between 3 languages.  My Portuguese is improving but still not fully conversational while my Spanish suffers from its proximity to Portuguese.  This leaves me unable to speak either one.  Meanwhile, my English worsens by the day.  The upshot: I spent much of today and yesterday stammering in no recognizable language, but with a New York accent.          

Biofuels, Climate Change & Agriculture

David Cassuto

Our hero is off to Santos, south of Sao Paulo, to participate in a congress on biofuels.  I will speak about the tangled relationship between biofuels, climate change and factory-farming.  I’m interested to see the reactions.

Blogging from Brazil

David Cassuto

I’m live-blogging from the plane on my way to Rio.  Actually, that’s not true.  There’s no in-flight internet connection so by the time you read this, the time of writing will have long passed.  Indeed, this situation reifies the ongoing and insuperable challenge faced by all writers.  Time, a crucial component of all experience marches ever onward; the writer can only try to invoke through words that which can never come again.  Or, as Jean-François Lyotard puts it, “in description, writing tries to meet the challenge of being equal to its momentary absence.”  Upshot: even though I’m not live-blogging, I just like saying “live-blogging” so that’s what I did.

In any case, I’ll be in Brazil for the next several months, teaching at the Getulio Vargas Foundation School of Law in Rio (FGV Direito-Rio).  FGV is the only law school in Brazil that utilizes the Socratic method and is well on its way to developing a world class environmental law program under the direction of my former student now colleague, Romulo Sampaio.  My stay in Rio has been made possible through the good offices of the late great Senator Fulbright.