Scholars and Jurists Unite to Defend Animal Rights and Animal Law at a Symposium at UQAM

MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - July 4, 2014) -

Editors Note: There is a photo associated with this Press Release.

On Wednesday, July 16th, Élise Désaulniers (Vache à lait : dix mythes de l'industrie laitière) will chair the first Montreal symposium on Animal Rights and Animal Law, co-sponsored by UQÀM's GRIDA (International Research Group in Animal Law), by UQÀM's Institut d'été Web Science and the Mind and by KARA (KebekAnimalRightsAssociation):

When: Wednesday, July 16, 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Where: UQÀM DeSève (DS) Pavilion

Free admission : eventbrite

Guest speakers, Mark Rowlands, Department of philosophy, University of Miami, Valéry Giroux, Centre de recherche en éthique de l'Université de Montréal, and Martine Lachance, Sciences juridiques and GRIDA, UQÀM, will focus on the importance of according legal status to animals as sentient (feeling) beings rather than as mere property, as now - the all-important first step towards providing them with legal protection against the infliction of needless suffering.

"There is no suffering that we inflict on animals that we do not inflict on humans," notes event spokesperson Dr. Stevan Harnad, Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal. "But the vast difference is that the suffering we inflict on humans is seen as wrong by most decent people worldwide-and it is also against the law. Not so for animals. They are not protected by the law and most of us are not only unaware of their agony in slaughterhouses, but also actively sustaining it as consumers."

For more information, please visit http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Webscimind/arights.html or visit https://www.facebook.com/droitanimal?ref=hl

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