Louise van der Merwe is deeply honoured to have been awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in recognition of her contribution to the cause of animal protection.
In announcing the award, Revd Professor Andrew Linzey said:
“This is the highest award that the Centre can bestow and is only given to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the Centre and/or the cause of animal protection. I am delighted to report that, after careful consideration, it is the unanimous decision of the Selection Committee to invite you to become our thirteenth Honorary Fellow.”
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For more information, visit the
Pakistani High Court Judge raises the bar for
animal welfare worldwide
A landmark judgment handed down by Islamabad High Court Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro on Friday, 23 May 2026, has set a new benchmark for animal welfare jurisprudence globally.
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The court had been petitioned to permanently restrain government officials from carrying out campaigns involving the poisoning and shooting of stray dogs. While specifically addressing the culling of dogs, Justice Soomro broadened the scope of his judgment to encompass all animals and, in doing so, articulated one of the most far-reaching judicial recognitions yet of animal sentience and moral worth.
“It is now increasingly acknowledged in modern constitutional thought,” he noted, “that animals are not mere chattels or inanimate objects to be dealt with solely at human convenience; rather, they are living, sentient beings, capable of pain, distress, comfort, and social response. The law, therefore, cannot remain indifferent to their existence.”
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The judgment went further, stating that the law is not confined solely to human survival, but forms the foundational premise upon which protection against cruelty and unnecessary suffering rests.
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“The animal,” Justice Soomro wrote, “by virtue of being alive, possesses a natural claim to exist in an environment compatible with its behavioural, social, and physiological needs. To deny such protection is not merely to neglect a creature of God, but to diminish the ethical content of law itself.”
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He continued:
“The prevention of cruelty to animals is thus not an isolated statutory concern; it is integrally connected with the broader constitutional promise of a civilized society governed by dignity, restraint, and compassion.
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“The true measure of a lawful society lies not in how it treats the powerful, but in how it safeguards those living beings that are wholly dependent on human conscience and institutional responsibility…
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“The injury inflicted upon animals, their needless killing, or the destruction of their habitat, ultimately reverberates through the human condition itself. Thus, compassion towards animals is not merely a matter of sentiment; it is a constitutional necessity, an ecological imperative, and a marker of legal maturity.”
Asked for comment, British advocate
Zannis Mavrogordato – who is monitoring international compliance by State Parties following the inclusion of animal welfare within the United Nations child rights framework through General Comment 26, Paragraph 35 – described the judgment as highly significant.​​​​​​​
​​​​​“The court’s recognition in paragraph 11 of the link between animal and environmental rights – namely that ‘compassion towards animals is… an ecological imperative’ – is deeply encouraging,” he said.
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“So too is the court’s invocation in paragraph 10 of several beautiful references from the Quran, including: ‘There is no creature on the earth or that flies with its wings but that they are communities like you.’”
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Adv. Mavrogordato added that it was noteworthy that the court had been asked to bear in mind that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child called for the protection of children from all forms of violence, including exposure to animal cruelty, because of the harm such violence may inflict upon the psychological and moral development of children.
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With the anticipated release this year of South Africa’s long-awaited new Animal Welfare Bill, The Humane Education Trust asked South African veterinary surgeon Dr Ayoub Banderker, well-known for his participation in ultra marathons to raise awareness for animals, whether he believed the Islamabad judgment might influence contentious South African animal welfare issues such as the live export of cattle and sheep by sea for slaughter in the Middle East, as well as trophy hunting.​
Dr Banderker replied that he welcomed the judgement. “The ruling is a most welcome and positive step in implementing the true values of Islam, pertaining to Animal Welfare.
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“We as humans are entrusted to be the vice-regents of God in this world, and therefore to ensure that all of God's creation under our care and management, are treated with the utmost respect and compassion in all aspects of our interactions with our fellow creation.
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“Whether the judgment will have an impact on the new Animal Welfare Bill in South Africa, remains to be seen. The fact that the UN has included Animal Welfare into the Child Rights framework, will certainly carry significant influence in how South Africa adopts its new Animal Welfare Bill. However there are many more factors, not just those pertaining to religious beliefs, that secular governments take into account when adopting new Bills, so the real weight of this ruling will only be seen when the final Bill is promulgated and implemented.”
Dr. Ayoub Banderker crosses the finish line in the Kalahari Augrabies Extreme Marathon in support of Cape of Good Hope SPCA
Interspecies Justice expert, Advocate Altamush Saeed
is a leading light in legal protection for animals in Pakistan and played a major part in achieving the historic judgment.
He said: “We have filed numerous litigations for animal rights from an interspecies justice perspective, as well as from the perspective of animal abuse being a form of violence against children.”
A word of thanks to Malcolm Plant, head of the European Link Coalition and the World Link Coalition
whose work helped initiate the inclusion of animal welfare into the
He explained: “The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has issued 'authoritative clarity' in GC26 to the 'legally binding' UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 19). All 196 member nations have ratified this agreement and are bound by international law. For the first time the world of animals has been introduced into an internationally agreed Human Rights Charter, and is a unification of the Animal World with the Human World. Real and enforceable! Already the world is changing!
We now need those with the power of communication with a greater audience to inform the world of what is potentially one of the greatest changes to our shared humanity!"
