For decades, Vermont Law and Graduate School has taught courses on animal rights and welfare. In 2021, the school officially launched the Animal Law and Policy Institute.

Now, the college offers an advanced degree for practicing lawyers to deepen their animal advocacy skills. It’s only the second such program in the United States.

The first four fellows arrived in South Royalton this fall from all over the world.

Delci Winders directs the VLGS’s Animal Law and Policy Institute, and she recently joined Vermont Public’s Jenn Jarecki to discuss it. This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Jenn Jarecki: To get us started, what do we mean when we say animal welfare and animal rights?

Delci Winders: There is a sense that there is a division— that there’s a binary — between animal welfare and animal rights. And the argument goes: animal rights are focused on the interests in animals — animals’ interests in their own well-being, dignity, etc, whereas welfare is sort of focused on human interest in treating animals OK while we use them, but that it carries with it a notion that it’s OK to use them so long as we treat them as well as possible in doing so.

And so there are different perspectives on whether or not this is a continuum or not. I try really hard to approach it broadly and to accommodate students who come with any position on what I do tend to see as more of a continuum. And I think advocating for welfare can ultimately lead to rights in certain circumstances.

Jenn Jarecki: Delci, you’ve been with VLGS’s Animal Law and Policy Institute since the beginning. Can you briefly walk us through its history?

Delci Winders: The institute launched in 2021, when I was recruited to join the faculty to start the animal law program, and I brought with me our associate director, Laura Ireland. We both had experience in Lewis & Clark’s Animal Law Program. Laura was instrumental in starting a lot of that programming, and I founded and directed the Animal Law Litigation Clinic there.

Jenn Jarecki: What types of classes are taught at the Animal Law and Policy Institute, and what are some of the program’s aims?

Delci Winders: We’ve got a pretty broad array of classes. We’re the fastest-growing animal law program in the country, probably in the world, so we’re adding classes all the time.

So we’ve got your core animals in the law class, and then we’ve got a lot of more specialized classes. So we’ve got a class on undercover investigations, we’ve got a class on science and animal law, we’ve got wildlife law, we have the law of animals in agriculture, the list goes on and on. And our mission is to train the next generation of animal advocacy leaders while centering animals in the fight for environmental protection and environmental justice.

Jenn Jarecki: Delci, I’d love to turn to this new fellowship program. I understand four practicing lawyers from around the world are at VLGS for the next year. Can you tell us who they are and what they’re doing?

Delci Winders: Absolutely. We’ve got four amazing people. So we’ve got Carlos Contreras, who is originally from Colombia. He’s licensed to practice in Colombia, he’s also licensed to practice in Spain. And he had a practice in Spain where he worked on a very high profile case on behalf of a whistleblower, and has come to Vermont law graduate school to study — he’s focused on American legal studies, so that he can sit for the bar exam in New York and practice animal law in the United States.

And then we have Lana Nadj, who is an Australian attorney who has practiced in Australia for many many years. She’s focused on money laundering issues and things like that, but has increasingly wanted to dedicate her practice to animal law, and so she’s focusing on that with us.

And then we have Pius Ubenyi, who is a Nigerian lawyer who, as a practicing lawyer in Nigeria, got to do some wildlife law work, and decided that he really wants to focus on animals. So, this is the theme here. And so he’s joined us to focus entirely on animal law and develop expertise there.

And then we have Anette Sikka, who is originally from Canada, but has been living in Alabama, and is, again, has practiced for many years. Primarily focused on human rights issues, but wants to focus on animal issues and go back to the Deep South, where there’s so much need for that work.

Jenn Jarecki: How are they settling into Vermont so far? I mean, I know they’ve been here for a few months, but how are things going?

Delci Winders: It’s been so amazing having them around, they’re an incredible cohort. We’re working on a research and writing project together, so, me with the four of them. They also are working on their own targeted research projects, and they’ve really just dived in. They’re having a great time, I’m having a great time with them, and they’ve really built impressive communities here in Vermont very quickly.

Jenn Jarecki: Delci, you’ve taught animal rights law around the country. You also directed the world’s first law school clinic dedicated to farm animal advocacy. Why move your family across the country for this program? And how are you finding Vermont?

Delci Winders: It was not an easy decision. I had a great job at Lewis & Clark, but really, the opportunity to start a program at such a special institution was too good to turn down. So, I had been teaching in the summer program at Vermont Law and Graduate School for a few years, so I knew how special it was. I knew that it’s a mission-driven institution. It’s not just a school with really strong programs, it’s a school where those programs, which are focused on the public interest, are at the heart of the identity of the school.

And I also knew that it had this long history of animal law, going back to offering one of the very first animal law classes in the world, and that students had been pushing for more offerings for many years. So it just seemed like the perfect opportunity, too good to give up, and so I took a giant leap.

Jenn Jarecki: Well, sticking with Vermont for a second, Delci, this past year, lawmakers cleared the way for an animal welfare division within the Department of Public Safety. Can you talk about the significance of this move here in Vermont and how it compares to some of the other states you’ve worked in?

Delci Winders: So this came about because there was a sense that the animal protection laws were spread out across a lot of different agencies for enforcement, and so that ended up with a lot of uncertainty as to who was responsible for certain things, and it ended up with things falling through the cracks, sometimes with finger pointing. And that’s common, we see that in all of the states. We also see that very much at the federal level.

And so something I’ve been urging at the federal level for a while now is the creation of an animal protection agency, and I think we need that at the state level as well, and I think this is a step in that direction, and I’m very excited about it. We don’t have a person in that position yet, so it’s something to keep an eye on and see how it goes, but I think it could be a model for the rest of the country.

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