Litigating & Legislating for Animal Rights Seminar #4: Right to Rescue & Voluntary Prosecution in Animal Advocacy
Anchored to Human and Animal Rights Day, this seminar explores the bold frontiers of movement-lawyering in animal rights: the 'right to rescue' and 'voluntary prosecution'. We will examine how these strategies are emerging in real-world litigation and advocacy, the opportunities they present for systemic change, and the legal, philosophical, and practical risks they entail.
At the heart of this discussion lies an urgent question: what does it mean, legally and ethically, to rescue a suffering or dying animal from a place of exploitation and cruelty, and what risks do animal activists take when acts of compassion are criminalised? From the prosecution of open rescues to the use of the necessity defence and voluntary prosecution as strategic tools, the seminar invites a critical reflection on how recent case studies and advocacy experiences are shaping the evolving landscape of animal rights law.
How can the right to rescue and voluntary prosecution reshape accountability frameworks for animal exploitation? And how might these approaches recalibrate our understanding of rights, responsibility, and standing in the animal law field?
Featuring Professor Matthew Liebman, Professor Justin Marceau, and animal rights lawyer Wayne Hsiung, this conversation — moderated by Dr Anna Caramuru P. Aubert — will combine legal analysis and reflective dialogue on strategic litigation and advocacy, followed by an open Q&A with the audience.
As part of ICARE’s Litigating & Legislating for Animal Rights seminar series — convened bi-monthly to mobilise cutting-edge scholarship and practice at the intersection of litigation, law reform, and animal protection — this virtual event aims to educate, inspire, and connect legal professionals, scholars, and animal advocates worldwide.
Our guests
Wayne Hsiung is an animal rights lawyer, former faculty member at Northwestern School of Law, and co-founder of The Simple Heart Initiative. He has led teams that have investigated and rescued animals from factory farms and slaughterhouses across the globe and has organised successful campaigns to ban fur in San Francisco and California. He has served as lead counsel (and, sometimes, defendant) in five 'right to rescue' trials in which activists were prosecuted after being charged for giving aid to sick and dying animals, garnering media attention from The New York Times. He is also a co-founder and former lead organiser of the grassroots animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere.
Wayne’s work has been covered by WIRED, ABC’s Nightline, and on The Ezra Klein Show. He has published on the right to rescue in Harvard Law Review and climate change’s impact on animals in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Prior to his work as an animal advocate, Wayne practiced law at two national firms and studied law and economics at the University of Chicago, where he was an Olin Law and Economics Fellow, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He is the proud parent of Oliver, who was rescued from the dog meat trade.
Justin Marceau is the Brooks Institute Endowed Chair and Professor of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, where he directs the Animal Law Program and the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project. A leading scholar and litigator at the intersection of criminal law, constitutional rights, and animal protection, his work examines how the criminal legal system is used—and often misused—to regulate advocacy, protest, and social movements.
Marceau has helped lead landmark constitutional challenges to ‘ag-gag’ laws nationwide. He is the author of Beyond Cages: Animal Law and Criminal Punishment (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Truth And Transparency (Cambridge University Press, 2023), along with numerous articles in the nation’s top law reviews.
Matthew Liebman is Professor and Chair of the Justice for Animals Program at the University of San Francisco School of Law. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Minnesota Law Review, the Wake Forest Law Review, the Maryland Law Review, Ecology Law Quarterly, the Animal Law Review, the Journal of Animal Law, and the Stanford Environmental Law Journal.
Matthew graduated from Stanford Law School and the University of Texas. He clerked for the Honorable Warren J. Ferguson of the Ninth Circuit. Before coming to USF, Matthew practiced law for 12 years with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, including three years as the organisation’s director of litigation. His research examines the socio-legal effects of law and litigation in the animal rights movement, as well as various substantive and doctrinal issues in animal law.
Recommended Readings
Participants are encouraged to review the following resources before or after the seminar, if of interest:
Voluntary Prosecution and the Case of Animal Rescue — by Justin Marceau, Wayne Hsiung & Steffen Seitz
People v. Hsiung (Professors’ Amicus Brief in The People of the State of California v. Wayne Hsiung)
Stilt & Liebman, Why Rescuing Animals Should Never Be a Crime
Places are limited — secure yours now to join the discussion.