The Animal Litigation Network is Europe's legal backbone for animal protection. We strengthen enforcement, advance strategic litigation and equip organisations to ensure that animal law protects animals in practice – not just on paper.
Across Europe, laws exist to protect animals – but too often, they fail in practice. Illegal practices continue, enforcement falls short and violations have no consequences. Animal protection organisations often lack the legal expertise, resources and coordination to take action. The result: laws intended to protect animals remain largely on paper. The Animal Litigation Network helps close that gap.
Our Board and Advisory Committee consist of lawyers, legal and policy experts, and enforcement specialists. Some of them are animal law practicioners or animal law experts, others are academics or founders/CEOs of national animal law NGOs.
Although the Animal Litigation Network foundation is registered in the Netherlands for efficiency reasons, our focus is international.
Many animal NGOs focus on rescue, care, public awareness or campaigning. That work is essential, but it does not always address the question of enforcement. The Animal Litigation Network occupies a different role. We are a legal and enforcement-focused organisation, dedicated to ensuring compliance with existing laws and creating real consequences for violations.
Our approach is strategic and systemic. We do not primarily address individual cases for their own sake, but use them to expose and change the systems that allow harm to persist.
We strengthen enforcement, advance strategic litigation and build legal capacity so that animal protection laws deliver real change for animals.
We envision a legal system in which animals' interests are taken seriously, their protections are enforced, and violations have consequences.
We focus on the gap between animal protection laws and what happens in practice. We identify where enforcement fails - for example because of inadequate inspections, weak enforcement or lack of legal consequences - and work with animal protection organisations to address these failures. We use legal and enforcement strategies to help ensure that existing laws actually protect animals in practice.
We identify and support legal cases that can improve protection for animals beyond a single case. Litigation can challenge government inaction, clarify how animal protection laws should be applied, strengthen enforcement or create important precedents. Our priorities are shaped by the problems animal protection organisations encounter in practice, ensuring that legal action responds to real-world harms and systemic failures.
We collect and share relevant case law, legal strategies and successful enforcement approaches from across Europe. This enables organisations and lawyers to learn from cases in other countries, adapt successful strategies to their own legal systems and avoid developing approaches from scratch. By sharing what works, we help effective legal strategies travel across organisations and borders.
We help animal protection organisations use the law more effectively. We connect NGOs with lawyers and legal experts, provide practical guidance and training, and facilitate collaboration on enforcement and litigation. This helps organisations develop their own legal capacity - from understanding enforcement procedures and gathering evidence to challenging authorities and, where appropriate, initiating legal action.
