Description:

Do animal welfare laws effectively prevent suffering for animals used for food?  Should we work to enact humane laws – or are they ineffective in a global food economy?   Join animal welfare, law and public policy experts to explore these questions and discuss strategies for action to prevent animal suffering.

Presenters:

Adam Weissman of Global Justice for Animals and the Environment  will address how the deadly combination of offshoring facilitated by liberalization of agricultural tariffs and WTO challenges to import bans on cruelly produced foods threatens to render humane laws irrelevant and even counterproductive.

Tools, Skills or Messages Participants Will Take Home:

Weissman:

Participants will learn that whether they take the position that activists for the welfare of farmed animals should focus on industry regulation, advocate veganism, or both, they must pay attention to international trade policy, which helps producers offshore production to escape domestic regulation and lowers princes on animal-based foods globally, incouraging increased overall consumption of animal products.  Participants will learn how they can join the fight against future free trade agreements and hold elected officials accountable for their votes on these agreements.

About the Moderator:

About the Presenter:

Adam Weissman works with Global Justice for Animals and the Environment, opposing trade agreements that endanger animals, ecology, food safety, and human rights, and TradeJustice NY Metro, an activist group coalition fighting NAFTA-style trade agreements.