The Cao is lucid and perceptive legal writing - lucidity being an attribute that I esteem - that covers -
- Animals: Morality, Science and JusticeThe work has a current and comprehensive 23 page bibliography.
- Historical Development of Animal Law
- Legal Status of Animals
- Overview of Animal Law in Australia and New Zealand
- Animal welfare Legislation
- Regulation of the Treatment of Companion Animals
- Regulation of the Treatment of Farm Animals
- Regulation of Wild Animal welfare
- Regulation of Animal Testing
Michael Kirby's foreword comments that -
The reader will therefore imagine that I faced the task of reading this new book with added anxiety, lest it cause me to banish fish from my diet and to embrace the habits of a vegan. In the end, that has not happened. the book is wise and temperate. It recognises that many human beings are on a journey of appreciation about this matter. But it teaches that all of us have to address cruelty to animals, and especially to mammals, whose genome and sensory systems are so similar to those of human beingsHe goes on to state that -
The book adopts a moderate, factual and analytical style. This is essential because its readership is likely to be the growing body of university students, most of them in law faculties, who are increasingly electing to undertake courses in animal welfare law at colleges throughout Australasia ... What, not so long ago, was regarded as an exotic topic of limited interest is now a fast-growing curriculum subject with a real legal dimension.It is a dimension that may inform our thinking about the rights - and responsibilities - of humans and of corporations.
The Torts Landmarks, drawn from a 2009 Kings College London symposium, features 13 chapters - usually of around 25 pages - discussing key UK torts cases such as George v Skivington, Daniel v Metropolitan District Railway Company and Hedley Byrne v Heller.
Excellent reading, even if you're not a devotee of torts law ... or as one of my sarkier students put it, a voluptuary of torts (an image that makes me think of purple silken hangings, sherbert, incense, to-die-for carpets and a very large bare-chested man with a turban and a scimitar - Dyson Heydon meets Salammbô and The Arabian Nights).
