Law students at the University of Ottawa (U of O) will be learning both bark and bite this upcoming year.
The university is now offering a civil law course focusing on animal rights called “Les droits des animaux.” The seminar course’s 12 spots are filled.
The course will be co-taught by part-time professor and lawyer Nicholas Jobidon and recent U of O graduate Justine Perron.
Jobidon will focus more on the academic side and Perron will be more focused on the content and research in the course.
Animal rights have come more to the forefront recently with documentaries such as Food Inc., and Cowspiracy.
“Animal law is going to become increasingly important . . . I think the industrial food chain is going to come under greater scrutiny,” Jobidon said. “We see there is an increasing demand for this, students were very interested when we published the course.”
Perron founded the Animal Protection Association at U of O while studying there, and said she became interested in animal rights after seeing videos on both the internet and social media.
The course hopes to tackle several different types of animal-related issues, such as agricultural animals, domestics, and wildlife.
“A few years ago I saw some videos on social media, and since I saw the practices in the food industry . . . after I saw that I could not emphasize enough how important it was for me to get this information out there,” she said. “I was going into law, and I thought that with the knowledge that I had I could make a difference at the source of it.”
Recently, Quebec passed a law that says animals are “not things” and recognized them as “sentient beings” that have biological needs.
Ottawa-based Puppymill Awareness Working Solutions (PAWS), a non-profit animal welfare organization, said in a statement that more knowledge of animal law is needed, and that a shift in the public’s awareness to vegan or vegetarian lifestyles is a positive step.
By creating lawyers who are more conscious of animal rights and their needs, Perron said she hopes to make positive change within animal cruelty legislation.
“I think putting a course that emphasizes the part that animals have in every law is important,” Perron said.
“It’s important that people know [animals] have rights, and that we need to protect them because they don’t have any voice. Through law we can give them a voice in their own, without people having to protest about what they do not have. Through law we can create change without [protestors] having to do anything.”
