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https://theconversation.com/bias-politics-and-protests-how-human-laws-constrain-and-sometimes-liberate-animals-176558>
"Review:
Guilty Pigs: The Weird and Wonderful History of Animal Law - Katy
Barnett and Jeremy Gans (Black Inc.)
Guilty Pigs traverses the world of nonhuman animals – and their human owners,
guardians, and policy makers – as they brush up against the law in a myriad
diverse ways. The book is not jurisdictionally specific, nor is it temporally
bound. It is startling in its breadth.
The authors, Katy Barnett and Jeremy Gans, are both based in Australia. As
such, Guilty Pigs features a generalised tilt towards English speaking
countries that inherited and built upon the British legal tradition. Yet the
authors’ discussion of animals and the law is impressive in its historical and
geographical diversity. From biblical times, to the Australian colonies, to
European Union policy and back again, this book touches on it all.
Explicitly intended for a broad, educated audience, Guilty Pigs is written in
accessible language, pausing from time to time to offer the reader a brief yet
illuminating introduction to key legal principles.
The authors have also made an explicit decision to not use detailed footnotes.
Rather, they ensure that the book flows. Those who want to undertake additional
research can consult the sizeable list of sources at the end.
This approach means that Guilty Pigs, which opens with a chapter on “Owning
Animals” and closes with “Protecting Animals”, is a pleasure to read. The
audience is guaranteed to learn a lot, without becoming bogged down in
black-letter law or overly abstracted legal theory.
The book also features a small but impressive number of images. All in black
and white, they include The Day of the Tentacle – an octopus “selfie” – which
is used to segue into a discussion about animals, copyright law and the legal
ownership of selfies, including the case of a macaque monkey that was found not
to have copyright over the photographs it had taken of itself.
One of the important things the book establishes is that there is almost no
aspect of the law that does not apply to animals in some way. That includes
family law, the laws governing inheritance, and the rules associated with
property searches. Animals are implicated at seemingly every turn."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
