PI: Professor Hira Jaleel, Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School

Date Awarded: December 2024 (FSRF 2024-08-30-10)

Executive Summary (reposted from the final report):

While much of the scholarship on CAFOs and industrialized farming has emerged from the United States and the European Union, there remains a gap in analysis of how litigation strategies are deployed in populous low-and middle-income countries (PLMICs). Existing research has documented the environmental, public health, and ethical concerns associated with CAFOs in the Global North, but has often overlooked the distinct legal, socio-cultural, and economic contexts that shape advocacy and litigation efforts in PLMICs. Without this knowledge, policymakers and advocates may lack a comparative evidence base for developing strategies that might prove effective across jurisdictions.

This project seeks to fill that gap by examining litigation strategies in four countries: Brazil, India, Mexico, and Zimbabwe. These countries were selected for this research because they represent a mix of regions and are major agricultural producers. Additionally, while each jurisdiction has its own unique challenges, the researchers’ goal was to select a sample of countries representative of the challenges facing PLMICs in balancing economic growth, food security, and animal welfare.  

The research aims to answer the following question:
“How have legal strategies and approaches in populous low-and middle-income countries (PLMICs) succeeded or failed in halting or slowing the spread of industrialized forms of animal agriculture, and what legal or socio-cultural factors influence these outcomes? Furthermore, are there any litigation strategies from these jurisdictions that could be effectively replicated and applied in other regions to challenge industrial animal agriculture?”

Each country report begins with a review of the state of industrial animal agriculture in its jurisdiction, documenting how many animals are farmed, under what conditions, and with what impacts. The reports then analyze laws and regulatory frameworks, including animal welfare statutes, constitutional provisions, environmental rules, and public health regulations, that can be or have been applied to industrial animal agriculture facilities.

Central to each report is an examination of salient litigation cases, highlighting both successes and failures in challenging industrial farming. These case studies provide valuable insight into judicial reasoning, enforcement gaps, and the broader social and political factors shaping outcomes in the selected jurisdiction.

Finally, each report evaluates strategic lessons for advocates. A recurring theme across jurisdictions is that incremental welfare improvements, enforcement of existing rules, and advancing environmental and public health arguments tend to be the most promising litigation pathways. Rights-based arguments for animal personhood or expansive constitutional protections, while groundbreaking, have the potential to face backlash or political resistance. Together, the reports provide a comparative framework for understanding how litigation can be used to contest the spread of industrial animal agriculture in PLMICs, and what strategies might be replicated or adapted in other regions.

Reposted from:

Center for Animal Law Studies, Lewis & Clark Law School, Farmed Animal Project (2025). A Comparative Analysis of Litigation Strategies in Brazil, India, Mexico and Zimbabwe. https://law.lclark.edu/live/profiles/23719-litigation-analysis. Edited by Hira Jaleel

Further Information: The full report and project overview are available on the Lewis & Clark Law School, Center for Animal Law Studies’ website.