Animal law | EPFL Graph Search

Animal law is a combination of statutory and case law in which the nature - legal, social or biological - of nonhuman animals is an important factor. Animal law encompasses companion animals, wildlife, animals used in entertainment and animals raised for food and research. The emerging field of animal law is often analogized to the environmental law movement because "animal law faces many of the same legal and strategic challenges that environmental law faced in seeking to establish a more secure foothold in the United States and abroad". Animal law issues encompass a broad spectrum of approaches - from philosophical explorations of the rights of animals to pragmatic discussions about the rights of those who use animals, who has standing to sue when an animal is harmed in a way that violates the law, and what constitutes legal cruelty. Animal law permeates and affects most traditional areas of the law - including tort, contract, criminal and constitutional law. Examples of this intersection include: animal custody disputes in divorce or separationsRussell D. Knight, In Chicago, Illinois, can the court award me custody of my dog, cat or pet? veterinary malpractice cases housing disputes involving "no pets" policies and discrimination laws damages cases involving the wrongful death or injury to a companion animal enforceable trusts for companions being adopted by states across the country criminal law - anti-cruelty laws. A growing number of state and local bar associations now have animal law committees. The Animal Legal Defense Fund, founded in 1979, was the first organization dedicated to promoting the field of animal law and using the law to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals. In the Swiss canton of Zurich an animal lawyer, Antoine Goetschel, was employed by the canton government to represent the interests of animals in animal cruelty cases from 2007 through 2010, when the Zurich Animal Advocate position was abolished.

Predicting the long-term collective behaviour of fish pairs with deep learning

Francesco Mondada, Alexandre Massoud Alahi, Vaios Papaspyros

Modern computing has enhanced our understanding of how social interactions shape collective behaviour in animal societies. Although analytical models dominate in studying collective behaviour, this study introduces a deep learning model to assess social in ...

2024

A biohybrid interaction framework for the integration of robots in animal societies

Francesco Mondada, Daniel Burnier, Vaios Papaspyros, Raphael Cherfan

The collective behavior of animals has been traditionally studied through observation, quantitative models of behavior, and devices of low intelligence. Nowadays, the advancements in the field of robotics allow for closed-loop experiments that occur in rea ...

2023