Public Biography
Professor Gerald Anscombe teaches international wildlife law at the Australian National University, a field he is credited with having largely invented. His 2017 textbook, Lex Fauna: Legal Frameworks for Non-Human Disputes, remains the only comprehensive treatment of the subject and is required reading in three law schools worldwide, all of which are in Australia.
Professor Anscombe has served as an independent legal commentator in several high-profile animal-related cases, offering analysis that reporters have described as “skeptical but not dismissive.” He has argued in academic publications that existing legal frameworks are theoretically capable of accommodating non-human plaintiffs but that “the procedural obstacles are, at present, nearly as formidable as the philosophical ones.”
He holds a doctorate in jurisprudence from Oxford and has been a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law since 2019.