University of Sydney researches pushing to give animals, plants legal rights
University of Sydney researchers will explore increasing the “moral, legal and political status” of animals and the environment during debates held later this year.
University of Sydney researchers will explore increasing the “moral, legal and political status” of animals and the environment during debates held later this year.
The topic will feature as part of the university’s new “FutureFix” program and will involve leading academics from around the world to workshop the issue deemed to be of “global importance”.
“Justice is typically thought to be the preserve of humans, and advocacy has sought to ensure all humans are subjects of justice,” researchers wrote on the university’s website.
“But harms inflicted on animals and the environment are coming to be understood as injustices,” they added.
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Institute of Public Affairs Western Civilisation director Dr Bella d’Abrera said the project demonstrated the university was out-of-touch with real problems faced by Australians.
“This is utter madness … Australian taxpayers need to be made aware that their hard-earned dollars are funding such frivolous and irrelevant research,” she said.
“The fact that they genuinely believe multispecies justice to be a global problem reveals the massive divide between the real world and the academy.”
A University of Sydney spokeswoman defended the program saying the research would help tackle important issues of injustice within the legal system in a rigorous academic forum.
“Our Faculty of Arts and Social Science’s new FutureFix research themes were established to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems such as climate change, inequality and our health,” she said.
“Given the unprecedented challenges we face, and acknowledging the old ways of doing things won’t work in this new world, it will require new thinking to address the deep complexities involved.
“Recognising that many legal systems and scholars now address harms inflicted on animals and the environment as a form of injustice, this project is examining what justice across the human and natural world might entail.
“There are a wide range of views about the best approach to achieving this, and the project will provide a rigorous academic forum for those views to be researched, analysed and debated.
“The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has provided seed funding for the faculty’s new research themes, including the multispecies justice theme, using internal resourcing.
“This includes funding for the symposia series, with a small number of invited international guests including many that will participate virtually with no extra cost to the University.
“Academics from California, Alabama and parts of India will either fly into Sydney in June to speak about interspecies justice or appear via video link.
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Specifically, they will be tasked with developing arguments around the “moral, legal and political status of humans, animals and the environment”.
There will also be talks on “storytelling and other aesthetic practices across species” which researchers argue will help the audience “think beyond liberal and individualist conceptions of justice”.
On it’s website the university says: “The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney will host a series of four symposia featuring University of Sydney and international academics and experts to work in a focused and exploratory way on the question of what justice means in a multispecies context.”
It comes as former Education Minister Simon Birmingham was forced to intervene in the university grants process last year.
It was revealed $4.2 million was spent on 11 grants to a range of universities.
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