Disclaimer

Content of materials on this page

The content of what appears on this Facebook page is not intended to be of an

academic nature, such as material contained in legal journals or legal publications.
The content is of this page is intended to state matters in as simple and
straightforward a manner as practicable, without adherence to strict legal academic
conventions or standards.

There are two main reasons for this. The first is that the material is intended to be
accessible by not only members of the judiciary and lawyers, but by other interested
persons include those engaged or wishing to become engaged in animal rights
activism.

Secondly, it has been one’s experience that overly-academic content and style of
writing on the present subject matter can have little practical effect. While it may
foster more and more academic writings, it has little benefit for animals. There are
literally thousands of academic articles on the subject of animal rights and related
matters, but these have very little practical outcome for animals. It is suggested that
these sorts of legal materials may result in an overly “cerebral” focus and engagement
on the issues, when what is primarily required is a practical focus and, one ventures
to say, an engagement by what may be described as emotional intelligence.

Many academic writings involve minute engagement in, and discourse on, the issues
concerning the nature of and the basis for possession of rights. It is not the intention
to engage in such activity on this page. It is JFAL’s contention that what Jeremy
Bentham has stated as being the basis for animals having legal rights is for the most
part all that needs to be said on the issue, and that academic debate on this is
unnecessary and counter-productive. JFAL goes as far as to say that it should be
essentially “self-evident” that animals can and should have legal rights appropriate to
their interests. It is intended, however, to examine the principal contentions courts
have put forward for denying legal rights to animals.

Work in progress

The content of posts, articles, and other materials produced for this page, should be
regarded as “work in progress”. JFAL intends the content to be always subject to
possible revision and amendment, and envisages that changes to the content of the
materials will be ongoing. The contents of these materials should therefore be seen
as of a preliminary nature and not be regarded as final or as expressing concluded
views.

Contributions to this page in the form of comments and replies

Bona fide contributions to this page to support its purposes in an intelligent manner
will be welcome. However, JFAL may not have the time or resources to respond.
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An absolute discretion is reserved to reject any comments or replies which are

regarded as being unsupportive or inappropriate.