Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: ABSTRACT
There has been considerable research on the extent that disadvantaged groups have used litigation to reduce mistreatment and establish rights, but virtually all that scholarship has been confined to human groups. However, since the 1970s, there has been a rise in interest groups that use litigation to bring about better treatment of non-human animals. Although legal scholarship has increasingly acknowledged the distinctive field of animal law and recognized animal litigating organizations’ impact on shaping animal law, there has been minimal scholarship that empirically tests the extent that organized animal activist litigation influences the outcome of animal law cases and generates public attention to the plight of animals. Moreover, since extant animal law research emphasizes legal doctrine, scholars have not addressed political explanations of the effectiveness of animal litigation. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature by testing whether animal organizations’ litigation increases the chance of a judicial decision favoring animal interests, and it investigates whether animal litigation increases media attention to animal liberation issues. This research reports the analysis of two sets of data the author collected on animal litigation. The results demonstrate that animal litigating groups do not exert a significant impact on the outcome of animal law cases, but there is some evidence that organized animal litigation creates increased media attention to the animal liberation movement and a vegetarian lifestyle. Since this research is in its early stages, this paper concludes with a discussion of further research on animal litigation.