A devastating new report published by The Animal Law Foundation (TALF) has revealed the fundamental flaws in the landmark Animal Welfare Act 2006, as we approach the statute’s twentieth birthday. The report, titled ‘Putting Animals Back into the Animal Welfare Act 2006’, explains that the primary failures arise more from the interpretation and enforcement of […]
“Acts of Omission: Assessing 20 Years of the Animal Welfare Act 2006” Friday 20th November 2026, 9am-5pm, Clayton Hotel, Cambridge City Centre November 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of the Animal Welfare Act 2006’s Royal Assent. This conference, co-hosted by the Centre for Animals and Social Justice and The Schweitzer Institute (TSI) will primarily […]
The CASJ is co-funding a new research project with Participedia, led by Lucy J Parry and Hans Asenbaum at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy; Graham Smith at the University of Westminster; and Claudia Fernandez de Cordoba Farini at Westminster and Living Imaginaries. This project takes the first steps to map an emerging set of practices […]
On November 21st 2025 we jointly hosted, with The Schweitzer Institute, our second annual conference towards eradicating the systemic failures in UK animal protection policy-making, particularly through the establishment of a new UK Government Animal Protection Commission. Held once again at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, the conference was titled: ‘Promoting Responsible Governance […]
The Centre for Animals And Social Justice (CASJ) is delighted to announce details of our forthcoming conference, which will take place at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, on Friday, 21 November 2025. The conference is organised in partnership with The Schweitzer Institute (SI), and is titled: ‘Promoting Responsible Governance of Animal Protection: Policy […]
In February 2025, the Animal Sentience Committee (ASC)—established under the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022—published a landmark report examining the government’s administration of animal law enforcement. The ASC sees this report as a critical element of its statutory duty to hold the government to account over how it considers the pain and suffering that animals […]
It seems that UK government ministers cannot talk about animal welfare without claiming that ‘Britain has the highest animal welfare standards in the world’. And how many of us, over the years, have written to our MPs on an animal protection issue, only to receive a standard reply that dismisses our concerns with the same […]
On 22 November 2024 at the University of Cambridge, the CASJ partnered with The Schweitzer Institute (TSI) to organise a groundbreaking conference that explored the ethical and political advances necessary to start providing animals and nature with effective protection. A key theme of the conference was the proposal for a governmental body, such as an […]
The Centre for Animals and Social Justice (CASJ) is offering grants for UK-based applicants to pursue research in the field of the politics of animal protection. We welcome applications that combine academic rigour with topicality and potential social impact, with the ultimate aim of advancing animal protection. Applicants should note the necessity to disseminate their […]
Earlier this month (September 2024), CASJ Trustee Professor Rob Garner spoke at the prestigious Manchester Centre for Political Theory about the late Siobhan O’Sullivan‘s pioneering work in the study of animal protection politics. His talk, which was part of the ‘Animals, Equality, and Democracy: Themes in Memory of Siobhan O’Sullivan’ workshop, focussed in particular on […]
The CASJ is delighted to be partnering with The Schweitzer Institute (TSI) for their annual Conference on 22 November 2024 at the University of Cambridge. The Conference, entitled ‘Ecocentric Ethics: Exploring Our Responsibilities to Non-Human Animals and the Environment‘, will see a range of renowned speakers who will be presenting their expertise regarding the social […]
As part of the CASJ’s mission to advance justice for nonhuman animals, we have been co-funding a research project which has been carried out by a team of academic experts in animal protection policy – Peter Chen from the University of Sydney; Siobhan O’Sullivan from the University of New South Wales, who tragically passed away […]
The CASJ is researching the role of the Animal Welfare Committee (AWC) , which is an expert committee whose role is to ‘provide advice on the welfare of farmed animals, companion animals and wild animals kept by people to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Scottish and Welsh Governments’.[1] Thus […]
It is now a year since we launched our ground-breaking international study of public policy regarding the farming of chickens for meat (they are known as ‘broilers’). By examining and comparing the policy process in four different countries (Australia, UK, Aotearoa-New Zealand and the Netherlands) we aim to figure out what factors help and hinder […]
The CASJ is teaming up with RSPCA Australia to initiate a ground-breaking international study that aims to understand which social, political and economic factors help or hinder animal protection. The two year project will compare public policy and regulation concerning the commercial production of chickens for meat (‘broiler chickens’) in four countries – the UK, […]
We are pleased to announce that Dr Lucy Parry, who has been carrying out academic research into animal protection funded by the CASJ, has had another paper based on those investigations published in a peer-reviewed journal, British Politics. Lucy’s research looked into the public debates on fox hunting, using a technique called ‘Q methodology’ to […]
One of the key measures in the new Domestic Abuse Bill being laid before Parliament is the establishment, on a statutory footing, of an ‘Independent Office of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’. The intended task of the Office is to lead government policy on preventing domestic abuse, including the publication of reports to hold Government to […]
This article by Professor Rob Garner, from his CASJ-funded research, is an account of the work of the Boyd Group, an informal grouping of stakeholders on both sides of the debate about animal experimentation formed in Britain in the early 1990s. Published in the Global Journal of Animal Law, it is an explorative case study […]
Leading animal studies scholar Professor Erica Fudge (pictured below) has written an exclusive article for the Centre about how the social history of farmer/animal relationships affects and illuminates contemporary debates about intensive animal farming. Professor Fudge, from the School of Humanities at the University of Strathclyde, examines extensive small-scale farming before the industrial revolution, a […]
Our CASJ-funded PhD researcher Dr Lucy Parry has successfully completed her project at the University of Sheffield investigating the political battle over fox hunting and has had her work published in eminent academic journals and conferences. Obviously, the whole point of our research is that it leads to better protection for animals. So on 10 […]
We are delighted to announce that our PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield, Lucy Parry, has now successfully submitted her thesis and passed her oral exam (‘viva’) to gain her doctorate in animal protection politics. The CASJ is delighted to have supported the advancement of knowledge to help animals. We’d like to thank […]
Most UK animal welfare legislation is based on EU rules formulated with UK involvement, so Brexit has the potential to affect animal protection levels in the UK (and across the remainder of the EU). Before the EU referendum, the CASJ explained that the impact of Brexit will depend on the UK government’s appetite for listening […]
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