Chairs

		Frederik von Harbou obtained his law degree from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2006. He held a position as a specialist in European Union law at the German parliament (Bundestag) before going to Zurich where he worked as a research assistant at the university’s Chair of Legal Theory, Legal Sociology and International Public Law until 2011. He is currently writing his doctoral thesis on ‘Empathy and Human Rights’ under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Matthias Mahlmann (Universität Zürich) as well as (from May 2012 onwards) completing his legal traineeship (Referendariat) at the superior Court of Justice of Berlin (Kammergericht). Besides, he is studying for a second undergraduate degree in philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin. His research is focused on legal and moral philosophy, human and fundamental rights as well as on European environmental law. He contributed the article (in German) ‘Object, Fellow Creature, Legal Person? The Animal in German Law – History, Current Situation and Prospects’ to the volume ‘Animal Law – Tier und Recht’ (Zürich 2012), edited by the organisers of the Animal Law and Ethics Conference.
		Jean-Marc Neumann is the Director of Legal Affairs of an international industrial group based in France. He received a Master of Business Law from the University of Lille and a university degree in English legal terminology and translation from the Institute of Comparative Law of Strasbourg. He has written several articles dealing with animal law. He is member of the scientific advisory board (since 2011) and member of the board of directors (since 2012) of the LFDA Foundation (Fondation Droit animal, Ethique et Sciences) based in Paris, France. He is also an associate member of the American Bar Association / TIPS Animal Law Committee.
		Peter Sankoff is a Professor at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law who specializes in animal law, criminal law and the law of evidence. He is the author or editor of five books, including Animal Law in Australasia: A New Dialogue, the first book ever published in the Southern Hemisphere to focus exclusively on animal law issues. Peter lectures and publishes on a variety of animal law topics. He taught animal law at the University of Auckland from 2006-2010, and also as a Visiting Professor at Haifa University in Israel, the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Ontario. Peter has also taught an advanced animal law course entitled Comparative Concepts in Animal Protection Law at Lewis and Clark College of Law.
		Saskia Stucki MLaw, is a research assistant at the chair of public international law and Swiss constitutional law of Prof. Dr. iur. Anne Peters, LL.M. at the University of Basel, where she works in the field of "law and animals". She graduated from law school summa cum laude in 2011 and is since working on her doctoral thesis on basic rights for animals. Her area of research comprises the critical analysis of existing animal protection laws, the theoretical foundation of animals' legal capacity to be subjects of rights and the development of a legal animal rights concept. Saskia Stucki has given several talks on Swiss animal law and has authored an article on the legal personhood of animals. Other areas of interest cover international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
		Markus Wild is SNSF-professor of philosophy at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, where he is about to start a long-term research project on the question of normativity and naturalism in the philosophy of mind and language. He studied Philosophy at the University of Basel. After his PhD in 2004 he worked as a research fellow at the Humboldt-University in Berlin until 2012. He works on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of biology, but especially on the philosophy of animal minds. He has investigated in questions of animal cognition, thought, and consciousness in early modern philosophy (Die anthropologische Differenz. Berlin 2006) and in contemporary debates (Tierphilosophie. Hamburg 2008), thereby pursuing a naturalistic philosophy of mind. He is currently co-editing an anthology devoted to the relations between animal minds and animal ethics (Philosophical Perspectives on Animals. Minds, Ethics, Morals. Dordrecht 2012); and he is co-worker on a volume on the history of the concept of mental faculties (Faculties. Oxford 2013). Markus Wild is member of the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology, member of the advisory board of the journal “Tierstudien”, and member of the “Forschungsinitiative Tiertheorien: Grundlagen der Mensch-Tier-Beziehung in den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften” (FITT).