Our Centre
The Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law is an academic centre of competence dedicated to the study of fundamental rights for non-human animals and is based in Cambridge, UK. Building on the success of the Talking Animals, Law & Philosophy series, the Centre was officially launched in 2019 and has since become one of the world’s premier academic centres focusing on animal rights law.
Why animal rights law? The welfare of animals has been on moral, social, and legal agendas since the 19th century. By contrast, the idea that animals could be regarded as legal persons or as holders of fundamental rights akin to those of human beings is a much more recent phenomenon. As a result, there is relatively little academic study into the legal foundations of animal rights laws and their social and economic consequences. Our Centre’s aim is to remedy this situation.
Our Centre:
researches and publishes in the field of animal rights law, exploring and developing the key themes;
holds conferences and workshops for legal academics;
teaches Animal Rights Law and other such courses to students;
supports law faculties at other universities internationally to assist them in offering their own courses, so that Animal Rights Law becomes a mainstream course within law degrees;
and offers talks for lay audiences.
The Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights law is a registered charity in the UK (Registered Charity Number 1190232).
Please note that our Centre is an independent centre, not part of the Cambridge University Law Faculty.
The welfare of animals has been on the agenda for centuries, but the question whether animals could hold fundamental rights is new.
End-of-Year Reports
At the end of each academic year, our Centre publishes an End-of-Year Report on its activities for donors. You can download our most recent report as a PDF file here.
