[Scoop.co.nz]

A new and more humane era may be dawning for animals as recognition spreads that, like human beings, they are sentient creatures who experience joy and feel pain and are entitled to legal protection.

“Animal law is a rapidly expanding field that is becoming an important aspect of our social policy,” says animal rights authority Diane Sullivan, who in 2004 founded an animal rights program at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover(MSL). At present, “Legal textbooks on animal rights are replete with judicial decisions that, in case after case, make all too clear that the law does nothing to genuinely protect animals. It certainly does not recognize their true value and special place in our homes,” the law professor says. Recent studies, she says, suggest dogs possess “a sense of fairness” and are on the same mental plane as a two-year-old child.

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full story:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0908/S00260.htm