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14 Animal L. [i] (2007-2008)

handle is hein.journals/anim14 and id is 1 raw text is: ANIMAL LAW VOLUME 14 2007 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION FINDING OUR VOICE: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE ANIMAL LAW COM M U N ITY .............................................. 1 Pamela D. Frasch ARTICLES A CONTRACTARIAN VIEW OF ANIMAL RIGHTS: INSURING AGAINST THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING A NON-HUMAN ANIMAL ................................... 5 Julie Hilden Contemporary research results regarding non-human ani- mals' intelligence, emotional life, and capacity for reciproc- ity strongly suggest the need for a sweeping re-evaluation of their legal status as mere property. In this essay, the au- thor will contend that the contractarian theory of philoso- pher John Rawls provides an ideal basis for this re- evaluation. Rawls' theory holds that the just rules for a given real-world society are those that would rationally be chosen behind an imaginary veil of ignorance, where the deciding parties are placed in an original position in which they have no idea of their personal qualities or the positions they will ultimately occupy in a real-world society. In the original position, Rawls contends, parties will met- aphorically insure against contingencies such as being poor or disabled, by arranging society to offer a social safety-net for persons in those situations. However, what about the contingency of being a non-human animal? The author will argue that though Rawls intentionally left this contingency out, it should be included - and comments on the profound changes to current law that would result if rules devised behind Rawls' veil of ignorance took into ac- count the contingency that, in real-life society, parties would be not humans, but non-human animals. ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION: LESSONS FROM HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION ............................ 29 Arthur Birmingham LaFrance Conventional wisdom tells us that animal experimentation is a relevant precursor to human experimentation. The fail- ings of human experimentation to be more reliable, how- ever, casts substantial doubt on the necessity and appropriateness of experimentation on animals. The federal government and medical community, since World War II, has used the Nuremberg Code and the common rule to de- termine how to ethically conduct human experimentation.