ISAR International
Society for Animal Rights
December 2017
The last few decades have seen the birth and exponential growth of a new field of jurisprudence, mostly in the United States, but also elsewhere in the world: Animal Law.
"Seeds" are defined as "the source, origin, or beginning of anything,"
giving rise in the context of Animal Law to three important historical
questions: What were the seeds, who planted them in the United States, and
what have they grown into in service to the cause of animal rights?
Joyce Tischler, attorney, founder, and president of Animal Legal Defense
Fund has identified the beginning of Animal Law in America. It was when ISAR
and its long-time chairman, Professor Henry Mark Holzer, brought a
constitutional challenge against a religious exemption to the federal Humane
Slaughter Act. The federal case was entitled - Jones, et al. v. Butz (374
F.Supp. 1284, D.C.N.Y. 1974).
As "the first animal rights lawyer," some forty years ago Professor Henry
Mark Holzer first articulated his vision of using the law on behalf of
animals at the "First National Conference on Animal Rights Law," organized
and sponsored by ISAR and Professor Holzer in 1981.
A major result of the conference was to coalesce the attending lawyers into
a loose network of like-minded individuals, and to identify the tools
necessary to create an entirely new, discrete field of law--one which would
take its deserved place among other long-recognized practice areas such as
corporate law, property law, criminal law and many others.
Over the past two decades, Professor Holzer's vision has been almost fully
realized.
The seeds that ISAR and Professor Henry Mark Holzer planted have grown.
ISAR is proud of how its seeds have flourished. From time to time we let our supporters know what new flowers have sprouted in today's jurisprudentially recognized field of Animal Law.
Please visit isaronline.org to read more about the flourishing seeds of animal law.
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