Animal Law in the United States - Important Issues and Recent Developments -

This article examines recent developments in animal law in the United States in four general areas and explains their implications. Section II discusses recent changes in state laws affecting animals, including those that increase protections for animals associated with agriculture and others that have the opposite effect or make it more difficult for activists to publicize what they view as mistreatment of animals. Section III reviews developments related to standards for housing and treatment of captive wild animals that are members of species given special legal protections for their wild populations. Section IV discusses two recent court decisions from the state of Oregon that could contribute to formulating a new legal status for animals in general. Finally, Section V details a new funding mechanism that increases government capacity to enforce animal laws already on the books, but which has caused some people to raise ethical concerns. Together, these developments can provide interest scholars and practitioners in Korea and other countries with ideas for developing animal law in their countries. Animal law is one of the newest and most dynamic areas of law in the United States. While both the federal government and individual states have for many years had laws preventing cruelty to animals and setting forth minimal standards at least some animals held in captivity, increasing interest by the public in treatment of animals of all types has accelerated legislative and judicial developments in this area of the law. Moreover, animal law is a recognized and growing legal specialty, with academic programs and journals focusing on the topic and a growing cadre of practitioners. Recent developments in American animal law provide a window into some of the most important discussions of how to structure the relationship between humans and animals in the 21stcentury, and the cutting-edge legal issues that arise in this important area. The policy and legal struggles over treatment of animals used in agriculture, the legal and market-based pressures on entities that maintain captive animals for entertainment, and the challenges of enforcing existing laws are a rich source of information and ideas for attorneys and policy-makers in Korea and other countries interested in animal law.