ICFAP - International Coalition For Animal Protection
Trees
Who we are

Safeguarding our symbiotic
relationship with the natural world

A Brief History

Coming together in March 2020 to discuss the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, members of the International Animal Law Committee of the American Bar Association (ABA) worked to call much-needed attention to the international animal law and welfare issues at the heart of the outbreak.

Those efforts resulted in the adoption of Resolution 101C by the ABA House of Delegates. Informed by a report of findings, Resolution 101C "urges all nations to negotiate an international convention for the protection of animals that establishes standards for the proper care and treatment of all animals to protect public health, the environment, and animal well-being." With a global goal in mind, those members founded the International Coalition for Animal Protection (ICFAP) in 2022. In addition to advancing the CAP, ICFAP also works for the interests of animals through educating the public and providing consulting and expertise on international policy issues relating to animals.

Meet the team

Rajesh K. Reddy
Rajesh K. Reddy
  • (he/him/his)
Board Member and President

An Assistant Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School, Raj directs the Animal Law Program at the Center for Animal Law Studies, the first of its kind in the United States. Outside of Lewis & Clark, Raj chairs the International Subcommittee of the Animal Law Section of the American Bar Association and is a board member for Minding Animals International. He has advanced human and animal interests through his work with the U.S.- based Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Human Rights Law Network in New Delhi, India.

Daina Bray
Daina Bray
  • (she/her/hers)
Board Member and Secretary

Daina Bray is a Clinical Lecturer in Law with the Law, Ethics and Animals Program at Yale Law School, where she leads the Climate Change & Animal Agriculture Litigation Initiative. She previously served as general counsel of the nonprofits Mercy for Animals and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and practiced with major international law firms in the areas of litigation and international arbitration. Daina is a member of the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates and a past chair of the ABA International Animal Law Committee, the ABA TIPS Animal Law Committee, and the Tennessee Bar Association Animal Law Section. She received a JD from Stanford Law School with pro bono distinction, a BA in international studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead scholar, a Fulbright scholarship for research in environmental education, and the 2021 ABA Excellence in the Advancement of Animal Law Award.

David Favre
David Favre
  • (he/him/his)
Board Member

David Favre has been a professor of law at Michigan State University College of Law for forty-four years. He served as Dean of the College for five years and continues to teach in the area of Property Law, Animal Law, and International Environmental Law. Professor Favre has written a number of articles and books dealing with animal issues including such topics as animal cruelty, wildlife law, animal rights, ethics of animal use, and international control of animal trade. His books include the casebook Animal Law: Welfare, Interest, and Rights (3rd ed. 2020), the ethics book Respecting Animals (2018), a legal development book, The Future of Animal Law (2021), and a discussion of the treaty CITES in International Trade in Endangered Species. He introduced the concept of 'Living Property' which was developed in a number of law review articles over the past decade. He has organized international conferences on animal law and has presented to international audiences on a wide assortment of topics. He created and is editor-in-chief of the largest animal legal web resource, www.animallaw.info. Now residing on a farm in Lower Michigan, Professor Favre shares his space with sheep, chickens and the usual assortment of dogs and cats.

Joan Schaffner
Joan Schaffner
  • (ze/zir/zirs)
Board Member

Joan Schaffner received a B.S. in mechanical engineering (magna cum laude) and J.D. (Order of the Coif) from the University of Southern California, and a M.S. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joan is Faculty Co-Director of the GW Law Animal Legal Education Initiative, leads the Animal Welfare Project, and teaches Civil Procedure, Sexuality and the Law, Remedies, and Legislation and Regulation. Joan's scholarship focuses on animal protection law. Ze has presented on animal law panels and conferences world-wide. Joan is the author of the book Introduction to Animals and the Law, of several book chapters including 'Animal Cruelty and the Law: Permitted Conduct' in Animal Cruelty: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding 'Valuing Nature in Environmental Law: Lessons for Animal Law and the Valuation of Animals' in What Can Animal Law Learn from Environmental Law? and 'Value, wild animals and law' in Animal Welfare and International Environmental Law: From Conservation to Compassion, and numerous articles.

Nigel Blackaby KC
Nigel Blackaby KC
  • (he/him/his)
Board Member

Nigel Blackaby KC is a partner at international firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Washington DC. He is an international arbitration practitioner who focuses his pro bono work on international animal law. In that context, he is a member of the Steering Committee of the ABA Section on International Animal Law and was part of the four strong commission (including Joan Schaffner (GWU), Raj Reddy (L&C) and David Favre (Michigan State)) that prepared the report and resolution in favor of an international convention on animal protection recently passed by the ABA House of Delegates as resolution 101C. He is active in promoting and disseminating CAP through outreach to various State agencies, international organizations, and regional/local NGOs. He also provides advice on legal issues to animal shelters internationally and is patron of an animal shelter in Colombia, Fundacion Animalove.

Laurie Morgan
Laurie Morgan
  • (she/her/hers)
Board Member

Laurie Morgan is an attorney advisor for the Commercial Law Development Program of the US Department of Commerce. She received her Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center (Washington, DC), where she was a Global Law Scholar, and her bachelor degree, cum laude, in International Justice from Leiden University College (The Hague, The Netherlands). She has contributed to publications for the Hague Institute for Global Justice and the Georgetown Journal of International Law. Her article on Reparations at the International Criminal Court will be published in Transnational Law and Governance Routledge Book Series in 2022.

Bird