June 17, 2025 Program Harvard legal scholars join battle to free elephants from Johannesburg Zoo
A landmark legal bid to free three elephants from captivity in the Johannesburg Zoo has gained international traction, with heavyweight legal scholars from Harvard Law School stepping forward in support of the case. The application – brought by Animal Law Reform South Africa, the EMS Foundation and Chief Stephen Fritz – is currently before the High Court in Pretoria. Professor Kristen Stilt, the faculty director of the Brooks McCormick Jr Animal Law and Policy Program, and Dr Macarena Montes Franceschini, a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute, have formally applied to join the case as amici curiae (friends of the court), offering their expertise in animal law and public policy. Their participation is intended to help the court understand the broader societal and ethical implications of the case, especially given the elephants’ complex cognitive and emotional capacities.
May 30, 2025 Program Opinion: Ford government borrows from the Donald Trump playbook regarding endangered species laws
Premier Ford indicated in his provincial election campaign that he would stand up to President Trump, but the reality shows Ford is following in Trump’s footsteps. Op-ed by academics Angela Fernandez, Kira Berkeley, Kelley McGill, and Krystal-Anne Roussel.
April 29, 2025 Program Lab Animals Face Being Euthanized as Trump Cuts Research
Ann Linder, an Associate Director at the Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, worries that the fate of many lab animals will come down to the “whims and temperaments” of individual researchers and lab employees. "Without oversight, some of those decisions will be poor ones, and many will be made out of callous necessity, without regard for the welfare of the animals in question.”
April 08, 2025 Program GOP Senators Renew Effort to Upend California Animal Protections
A 2023 Harvard Law School analysis of Senator Ernst’s bill—known commonly then as the “Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act” or “EATS Act” —found it had the potential to nullify “over a thousand state laws” regulating the production and sale of agricultural products.