Harvard Animal Law & Policy Program Legislative Policy Fellowship

David Cassuto

An exciting opportunity.  Note the tight deadline:

Applications currently being accepted for the 2017-18 Legislative Policy Fellowship through November 15, 2017.

The deadline to submit applications is November 15, 2017. To apply for a Farmed Animal Law & Policy Fellowship for 2017–2018, please submit the following materials via the online application form:

• a curriculum vitae
• a recent publication or a writing sample (approximately 25 pages in length). All publications or writing samples should be in English.

You also will be asked to arrange for two letters of recommendation to be sent directly from your referees to the Program via our online application system by November 15, 2017.

Additional Information

Funding and Facilities

Fellows will receive a stipend of up to $5,000 per month. The Animal Law & Policy Program will pay the monthly Law School appointment fee for the duration of a Fellow’s stay at the Program, which will ensure, among other things, library access to all Harvard University libraries, access to University recreational facilities (for an additional fee), an email account at the Law School, membership in the Faculty Club, and free admission to University museums. Visiting Fellows will receive an office at the Animal Law & Policy Program or in the Harvard Law Library.

Terms of Appointment

Policy Fellowship terms are variable, from a minimum of three months to a maximum of one year. Academic Fellowship appointments typically last for two years.

Residence Requirements

With exceptions for a limited amount of personal and professional travel, Visiting Fellows are expected to be in residence at the Animal Law & Policy Program throughout the term of their appointment in order to foster an intellectual community, share ideas, and contribute to Program projects and events.

Housing

The Animal Law & Policy Program does not provide housing. No housing should be expected in University apartments or dormitory rooms, for which Harvard faculty and students have priority. Accepted fellows are encouraged to seek outside housing several months before arriving in Cambridge, preferably in person. There is information on housing on the Harvard International Office website.

Health Insurance

All visiting fellows must show proof of having adequate health insurance. Those who do not already possess such insurance can access information on obtaining Harvard Affiliate Health Insurance at the Harvard University Health Services website. A less expensive plan, available by the month, has been negotiated by Harvard’s International Office for international scholars.

Courses

Visiting Fellows may audit one course in any unit at Harvard University on a non-credit basis per semester, with permission of the instructor. There is no tuition charge for auditing courses. Visiting Fellows do not have faculty status. Appointment as a Visiting Fellow does not entitle the individual to participation in any Harvard degree program.

Cool Job Opening! Policy Director, Harvard Animal Law & Policy Program

David Cassuto

From the email:

Policy Director – Job Description

Harvard Animal Law & Policy Program

Overview

The Harvard Law School Animal Law & Policy Program is inviting applications for a Policy Director to develop and oversee a broad range of federal, state, and local policy projects to improve the treatment of animals by the legal system. The Animal Law & Policy Program engages with academics, students, practitioners, and decision makers to foster discourse, facilitate scholarship, develop strategic solutions, and build innovative

The AWA at 50 — Call for Papers

David Cassuto

From the email: 

The Animal Welfare Act at Fifty Conference

 

Harvard Law School
1585 Massachusetts Ave – Cambridge

Date/Time
Date(s) – Thursday, September 22, 2016 – Sunday, September 25, 2016
All Day

Location
Harvard Law School

Overview

The Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School is pleased to announce The Animal Welfare Act at Fifty, a conference that will bring experts together to assess the first fifty years of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and consider recommendations for the future. The event will include conference presentations as well as a separate academic workshop component.

We welcome submissions on both broad and specific law and policy issues. In an effort to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue, we encourage submissions from legal scholars and lawyers; government officials and staff; academics in disciplines outside of law, such as sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics; international scholars and regulators; veterinarians and animal behaviorists; and others with perspectives on the AWA. We also encourage submissions from experts in other areas of legislation and regulation who can bring a comparative approach to the study of the AWA. We encourage submissions from advocacy organizations, industry representatives, think tanks, and others outside academia, but emphasize that this is a scholarly conference and abstracts will be judged by academic standards.

Individuals can submit proposals for both conference presentations and the workshop if desired.

Conference Presentations

Those interested in presenting at the conference are invited to submit an abstract of up to 400 words describing their proposed presentation along with a CV. All abstracts and CVs should be submitted together to ALPP@law.harvard.edu with “AWA Conference Presentation Proposal” in the subject line no later than April 5, 2016. Conference presentations will be approximately 20 minutes in length.

Workshop Papers

Those interested in participating in the academic workshop are invited to submit an abstract of up to 400 words describing their proposed paper along with a CV. All abstracts and CVs should be submitted together to ALPP@law.harvard.edu with “AWA Workshop Proposal” in the subject line no later than April 5, 2016.

Those selected as workshop participants must submit their final papers by August 15, 2016, so that they can be circulated and read by the other workshop participants in advance of the workshop. The final workshop papers should be approximately 10,000 words (including footnotes). Each paper should be an unpublished work in progress. We will consider papers that have been accepted for publication, as long as they have not yet been published and the author will still have an opportunity to incorporate feedback from the workshop.

Potential Topics

We welcome submissions on both broad and specific law and policy issues. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Agency compliance strategies

Efficacy of different types of standards, such as engineering vs. performance, general vs. species-specific, etc.

Which categories of animals are/should be afforded legal protections

Agency licensing practices

Agency restructuring proposals

Agency culture

Differential treatment of research facilities and other regulated entities

Education vs. enforcement

Regulatory vs non-regulatory approaches

AWA intersections with other laws

Agency inspections

Agency administrative hearing practices and due process

Agency collaboration with the Department of Justice

Settlements and discounting administrative penalties

Agency use of warnings

Assessing the adequacy of veterinary care

Judicial review of agency action

Citizen suit provision proposals

Impact of public opinion on the law and its implementation, media narratives, and social movement advocacy

Animal confiscation under the AWA

Transparency in implementation

Alternatives to use of animals in research

The role and efficacy of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees

The role of undercover investigations at regulated facilities

Comparative analyses of the AWA and other animal protection regimes

Contact

For additional information, please contact alpp@law.harvard.edu.

 

Harvard Announces New Animal Advocacy Program

David Cassuto

From the email... Brad Goldberg is a mensch of the first order.

Generous Gift from Bradley L. Goldberg Will Support Animal Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School

October 29, 2014

 

Harvard Law School has announced that Bradley L. Goldberg, founder and president of the Animal Welfare Trust, has made a generous gift to endow the Animal Advocacy Program at Harvard Law School. By funding curriculum development, experiential learning, scholarly gatherings and exchanges, forums for discussion and debate, and the establishment of an Academic Fellows program, this gift will launch a new level of activity in animal law at the Law School and will enable faculty members, students, and practitioners to build innovative bridges between theory and practice.

“Once at the margins, legal questions about the status, interests, and treatment of animals increasingly take their rightful place across society,” said Martha Minow, Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor at Harvard Law School. “Now is the time for the resources of tort, property, family law, environmental law, constitutional law, and legal change strategies to make a crucial difference in the lives of animals. We are thrilled that Brad Goldberg has chosen Harvard Law School to advance his visionary work and enable faculty, students, and practitioners to propel new thinking and action on animals and the law.”

Said Goldberg: “Animals have rights to experience a life of respect, free from unnecessary suffering, and the animal advocacy movement needs and deserves a new generation of leaders so that progress can continue. With its long history of pioneering legal theories to support social movements, Harvard Law School is able and willing to work with policy makers, regulators and society to increase protections for animals. This is a very exciting opportunity for the animal protection movement.”

Over the past three decades, Harvard Law School has broadened its curriculum to include courses, clinical programs and research centers that address the changing shape of law and society. The Law School launched the study of animal rights more than fourteen years ago, at a time when it was still an emerging field of law. In June 2000, Pearson Television made a gift, in honor of game show host and animal rights activist Bob Barker, to establish the Bob Barker Endowment Fund for the Study of Animal Rights at HLS. The Goldberg gift will enable the Law School to create and implement an expanded animal law curriculum and facilitate new partnerships among academics, activists and students. For example, students will have a greater opportunity to gain valuable hands-on experience by assisting an animal protection group with an investigation or other project, or undertaking their own individual research and writing projects.

“Animals are important members of society, and the law has a significant impact on how they are treated, ” said HLS Professor Kristen A. Stilt, whose interest in animal law stems from her work on Islamic law and law in contemporary Muslim societies. “This gift will allow us to focus the attention of academics, policy makers, practitioners, and students on the most pressing problems facing animals today. With new collaborations generating new ideas, what we can accomplish is tremendous,” she added. Stilt joined the Law School faculty in 2014 and will direct the Animal Advocacy Program.

Goldberg, a New York resident, founded the Animal Welfare Trust in 2001 as a private operating foundation. The Trust provides grants to students and organizations, particularly to help grassroots efforts that have a compelling vision as to how they can make a unique contribution to the animal welfare cause. Goldberg said when he retired from the investment management business in 2001, he chose to pursue “his real passion: animal rights.”

In addition to the organization he founded, Goldberg serves as chair of Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers (HEART), an organization with a mission of teaching compassion and respect toward all living beings and the environment; as an officer of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food; as a trustee of the Wildlife Conservation Society; and as a trustee of the Cultural Institutions Retirement System.

In 2010, Goldberg helped establish the Animal Studies Initiative at NYU. The Initiative offers an interdisciplinary undergraduate Minor in Animal Studies (one of the first in the country), supports graduate and post-doctoral research and teaching, and presents a program of public lectures, conferences, and workshops.

During his distinguished 35-year career in investment management, Goldberg served as an executive vice president, portfolio manager, and chair of the asset allocation committee at Jennison Associates, a subsidiary of Prudential Financial.

Blogging from the Animal Moot

I blog from Cambridge, MA, where tomorrow the National Animal Law Moot Court Competition begins.  I have the honor of participating as a judge – something I have done for each of the last 5 years.  This year’s competition is sponsored by Lewis & Clark Law School’s Center for Animal Law Studies in collaboration with the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF).  It is hosted (as it has been since its inception) by Harvard Law School’s Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF).  Law schools from all over the country will participate – a testament to the growing recognition of animal law as a legal discipline as well as to student interest in the field.  For the final round, Judges D. Brooks Smith of the 3^rd Circuit, Susan P. Graber of the 9^th Circuit and Lee H. Rosenthal of the Southern District of Texas will preside.

I’m delighted to report that Pace Law School will field teams in both the moot court and the closing argument competition for the second consecutive year.  Go teams!  My rooting interest aside (and, of course, I will not judge any rounds in which Pace is involved), this competition routinely features some of the best student advocacy it has ever been my privilege to witness.  This year will no doubt produce more of the same.

The moot problem involves the applicability of the federal 28 Hour Law (requiring that no animal be transported for more than 28 hours without food, water or rest) to chickens.  This is a live issue; a number of federal laws, including the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act and the Animal Welfare Act exclude birds from their coverage and the legislative history of the 28 Hour Law offers little clarity on the matter.  Another issue centers on whether the 28 Hour Law preempts state anti-cruelty statutes for animals involved in interstate transport.  It’s an interesting set of issues that require advocates to grapple both with the stark, unlovely reality of the animal transport industry and with the law’s apparent indifference to same.

—dnc