No abstract

Law and food are distinct concepts, though the discipline (Law and Food) implies a relationship worthy of study. The conjunction ("and") creates meaning. However, its absence also conveys meaning. For example, "meat animal" suggests that animals can be both meat and animal. This conflation has powerful legal implications. National Meat Association v. Harris (2012) makes chillingly plain the law's indifference to whether a meat animal is alive or dead. This essay examines the way supposedly humane federal practices ignore the systematic brutalization of "food animals" as those animals get processed into marketable flesh. It concludes with some observations about why this legal blindness exists.

In the United States and around the world, animals exploited for human use suffer cruel and needless harm. The group bearing the brunt of this exploitation-agricultural animals-is routinely exempted from the largely ineffective and rarely enforced animal welfare and anti-cruelty regulations that exist today. This Article offers a comparative analysis of the agricultural animal welfare regimes of two countries with globally significant presence in the agriculture industry: the United States and Brazil. Even though the two countries approach agricultural animal welfare differently, they arrive at the same outcome: institutionalized indifference to animal suffering. To remedy the current regulatory structure, this Article proposes the creation of an independent federal agency-The Animal Welfare Agency ("AWA")-to regulate the safety and welfare of all animals, including those used in agriculture. The AWA could significantly reduce systemic animal cruelty in both the United States and Brazil and repre sent an important step toward inserting morality and ethics into our relationships with animals.

No abstract

Discussões sobre o tratamento dos animais na indústria global<br />de alimentos muitas vezes se transformam em discussões<br />sobre os direitos dos animais. Tais desvios inutilmente tiram o<br />foco de uma catástrofe social e ambiental que está ocorrendo.<br />Este ensaio tenta reformular o debate global sobre alimentos em<br />uma forma mais direta de reconhecer as nossas obrigações e as<br />necessidades dos bilhões de animais escravizados pelo aparato<br />da indústria de alimentos.