This Handbook establishes the field of Global Animal Law, which engages with the legal status and protection of animals in today’s globalised world. GAL is an umbrella term for domestic, regional, and local law; for religious and indigenous prescripts; for state-made and privately generated standards; and for international soft law and the scarce international treaty law on the treatment of animals and animal species. GAL is not a ready-made, full-fledged, existing legal framework. Rather, it is both a fragmented and evolving body of law as well as a nascent and burgeoning body of scholarship – and it is (co-)constituted by a multitude of actors who think and do GAL.

The Oxford Handbook of Global Animal Law is co-edited by Anne Peters (MPIL Heidelberg), Kristen Stilt (Harvard Law School), and Saskia Stucki (ZHAW). It is an international and collaborative project that involves more than 130 authors from all over the world.

The Handbook will be published open access in 2026.