Encountering the Author

Animal welfare laws for hens in petting zoos are more comprehensive than laws for broiler hens raised for meat.

Seem strange? In Animals, Equality and Democracy Siobhan O'Sullivan exposes inconsistencies in animal protection laws that favour the most popular, best known nonhuman animals. She also shows that protections vary depending on how we want to make use of a particular animal, with the most visible animals receiving the strongest level of protection. She argues that contemporary animal welfare laws make the lives of animals akin to a lottery.

O'Sullivan calls this the 'internal inconsistency' and argues that animal protection inequalities offend fundamental liberal democratic values. She argues that this is a justice issue and proposes that both human-animal studies scholars, and animal advocates, turn their attention to the internal inconsistency as a pressing matter of social justice.

Dr. Siobhan O'Sullivan is a Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She has published extensively on animal related matters, with a particular emphasis on how our political institutions influence the life chances of nonhuman animals.

Other speakers include: Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, University of Sydney Jane Johnson, Macquarie University Chris Degeling, University of Sydney John Hadley, University of Western Sydney.