Annual Lecture
We are delighted to announce that our 2024 Annual Animal Rights Law Lecture will be delivered by Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.
Professor Singer’s Lecture will address the need for further progress in ethics and law regarding animals, and the prospects of achieving it.
Join us on Friday 14 June 2024 at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Law from 4.00 pm for this year’s Annual Animal Rights Law Lecture, Q&A, and drinks reception. Tickets and further details are available on Eventbrite.
PLEASE NOTE: The lecture hall has a limited capacity so, while the event is open for all up until doors close, we will be prioritising entry for those with tickets. Doors open for Eventbrite ticket holders 30 minutes before the event, and 15 minutes before the event for everyone else. Please ensure to arrive on time to avoid missing out.
Often described as the world’s most influential philosopher, Professor Singer became well-known internationally after the publication of his ground-breaking book Animal Liberation in 1975, which has been described as one of the most important books of the last 100 years. In 2023, he published the fully rewritten and updated Animal Liberation Now.
Professor Singer’s other books include: Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle, How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, Pushing Time Away, The Life You Can Save, The Point of View of the Universe (co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), Ethics in the Real World, and The Buddhist and the Ethicist (co-authored with Shih Chao-Hwei).
In 2005, Professor Singer was in Time Magazine’s list of 100 most influential people. In 2012, he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, the nation’s highest civic honour. He founded the charity The Life You Can Save and is a founding co-editor of the Journal of Controversial Ideas. In 2021, he was awarded the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, and in 2023, he shared, with Steven Pinker, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Humanities and Social Sciences.
Learn more at https://www.petersinger.info/. Photo courtesy of Aletta Vaandering.
Past Annual Lectures
Our first Annual Lecture was given in March 2023 by Professor Frans de Waal on Animal Emotions and Animal Rights Law.
The lecture was recorded and is available to watch for free on YouTube. To the right is a subtitled clip from the event.
Professor Frans de Waal is a Dutch/American biologist and primatologist known for his work on the behaviour and social intelligence of primates. His first book, Chimpanzee Politics (1982), compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. His scientific work has been published in hundreds of technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and outlets specialized in animal behaviour. His popular books - translated into 20+ languages - have made him one of the world's most visible primatologists. His latest books are Mama’s Last Hug (Norton, 2019) and Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist (Norton, 2022). De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor Emeritus at Emory University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Utrecht University. He has been elected to the (US) National Academy of Sciences as well as the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, Time declared him one of The World’s 100 Most Influential People Today.
De Waal’s lecture theme was emotions in animals, where increasing understanding provides further evidence for the concept that animals and humans are on a single continuum, and therefore supports the proposition that many of the fundamental legal distinctions between animals and humans need to be rethought.
The Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law is a UK-registered educational charity. The Annual Animal Rights Law Lecture is generously sponsored by the Jeremy Coller Foundation, as well as a generous donation from the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law & Policy.