Aquatic Animal Law Project

Project Leadership

 

Kathy Hessler

Director, Assistant Dean

About the Project

Aquatic animals (including amphibians, finfish, marine mammals, crustaceans, reptiles, molluscs, aquatic birds, aquatic insects, and even animals such as starfish and corals) are too often left out of the legal and regulatory frameworks that provide some protection for other non-human animals. Too little is understood about the welfare, environment, and health of aquatic animals, as well as safety issues associated with aquatic animal use and production. Likewise, too little of the evolving scientific data related to aquatic animals is available to the public and policymakers. When making decisions affecting their lives, it is important to consider the critical role of aquatic animals within ecosystems, as well as their individual capacities and biological needs.

Given the widespread use of aquatic animals for human goals, it is also important to consider questions raised by that usage: housing, feeding, medical care, transportation, slaughter, processing, breeding, testing, and exhibition. Until recently, there has been no entity dedicated to the legal analysis of these issues. In 2016, Kathy Hessler created the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative (AALI) at Lewis & Clark in her Animal Law Clinic to consider the legal, as well as scientific and economic, contours of issues resulting from the use of aquatic animals. It was the first entity to broadly look at the legal issues facing all aquatic animals.

In 2022, Kathy Hessler moved to the George Washington University Law School and brought her aquatic work with her, now under the title - Aquatic Animal Law Project. This work is part of ALEI at GW Law.

The Aquatic Animal Law Project works to protect and promote the interests of aquatic animals by:

• Advocating on their behalf through the legal system;
• Promoting their value to the public by providing education about their cognitive, emotional, and physiological capacities; and
• Harmonizing human, animal, and environmental interests.

Aquatic Animals: Law, Science, and Policy

A textbook co-authored by Dean Hessler, Amy P. Wilson, Kelly Levenda, Becky Jenkins, and Sonia Waisman. Publication forthcoming 2027. Please stay tuned!

World Aquatic Animal Day (WAAD)

Amy P. Wilson

Co-Founder

Amy P Wilson is an attorney and researcher with over 15 years of professional legal experience focusing on the intersection of the rights of humans, animals and Nature in law and policy and creative approaches to an inclusive justice system. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of Animal Law Reform South Africa, the country's first dedicated animal law non-profit. She is a Research Associate, Lecturer and Doctoral Candidate with the University of Johannesburg and a Senior Adjunct Lecturer with the University of the Western Cape. She consults for the Aquatic Animal Law Project, Animal Legal Education Initiative at The George Washington University Law School. She has previously worked at Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland and at UCLA University of California, Los Angeles Law School in their animal law programs. Amy is an Independent Expert with the United Nations in Harmony with Nature Programme and a founding steering committee member of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature: Africa Hub. She is the first South African to graduate with a master’s degree in animal law, leads a number of animal protection organisations throughout Africa and has worked with several leading international animal nonprofits.

Amy has been published in international peer-reviewed journals and has authored several book chapters on animal law. She is currently co-authoring a book on aquatic animal law and co-editing the first animal law book in (South) Africa. Amy co-taught the first animal law course in South Africa and in 2025 she taught the first dedicated Animal Rights and Law Course in Africa at Masters’ Level in Africa.

About WAAD

World Aquatic Animal Day was Amy P. Wilson's idea and was co-created by Amy P. Wilson and Kathy Hessler in 2019 as a part of their work for the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative at Lewis & Clark Law School. World Aquatic Animal Day is a day of international recognition led by programming designed to help people understand who these animals are, how they are used, what their capacities are, how they suffer, and how the law fails to protect them.

The first World Aquatic Animal Day (also known as WAAD) was launched in 2020. For information and resources from WAAD visit past event webpages from 2020, 2021,  2022, 2023, 2024 (panel 1 and panel 2), and 2025.

WAAD 2026 | The Human Gaze: Impacts on Aquatic Animals

This year’s World Aquatic Animal Day features a webinar at 12pm ET and an in-person event at 4pm ET at GW Law. 

Word Aquatic Animal Day 2026 is co-sponsored by the Whale Sanctuary Project, the GW Law chapter of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, and Farm Sanctuary. The WAAD Committee includes Kathy Hessler, Miranda Eisen, Amy P. Wilson, and Hana Nabulsi. 

For more information, contact Assistant Dean Kathy Hessler.

WAAD 2027 | Digital Tides: Emerging Technologies and Aquatic Animal Futures

Save the date for WAAD 2027! Word Aquatic Animal Day 2027 is co-sponsored by the Whale Sanctuary Project. 

Past Events

For a playlist of our past events, check out our YouTube Channel!