Jeanette Rowley (PhD, 2017) believes she is unique in being the only person in the world with the title of Vegan Rights consultant. As such, lawyers from all over the world contact this Lancaster University ground breaker to gain the best advice for their clients on how to fight their cases for discrimination which deny them the right to lead a life free of harm to animals. Often this is as basic as giving them the right to vegan meals. She has supported cases of discrimination in different jurisdictions around the world.

“The point of using law to protect vegans,” explains Jeanette “is to ensure that veganism is recognised and respected as falling within the legal meaning of the international human right to freedom of belief, that vegans are protected from unfair treatment and discrimination, and that their needs are acknowledged and accommodated.”

Jeanette’s PhD at Lancaster gave her the tools to do just that. She graduated in 2017 with a doctorate focusing on veganism and the law. Her goal was to look at veganism as a human right against the background of equality legislation and existing recognition of veganism at the European Court of Human Rights. Her thesis, ‘Towards a Vegan Jurisprudence: The Need for Reorientation of Human Rights’ has since been published by Rowman Littlefield, along with two later publications, ‘Law and Veganism: International Perspectives on the Human Right to Freedom of Conscience’ (Co-edited with Professor Carlo Prisco), and ‘Seeds of Change: The International Vegan Right Alliance and the Vegan Rights Revolution’. This has strengthened her ability to fight the vegan cause as a consultant to The Vegan Society, chair of the Society’s International Rights Network (formerly The International Vegan Rights Alliance), and manager of The Vegan Society’s rights and advocacy service. At The Vegan Society, she has also recently introduced a rights-based approach to vegan-inclusive education for all pupils. She is also Co-Founder and Head of assessments of the recently established Vegan Inclusion Co.

She is grateful for what she learned at Lancaster University but does not hide the fact that her studies there as a mature student presented challenges. In 2011, when Jeanette started her PhD research, it was very unusual for an academic research project to include the word “vegan”.

Jeanette was eventually supervised by Professor Steven Wheatley (an expert on human rights theory) and Dr Bela Chatterjee (a law specialist), but says her subject area of interest remained challenging for an academic establishment because veganism was not well known or well supported in academia.

Although the research process was not easy, she recognises that this is because she was breaking new ground: “But the process was robust,” she points out,” which was very helpful for me in defending my ideas and arguments.”

Jeanette had to fight her corner for a long time. She has been vegan for many decades. As a young child, an adult’s remarks about the lambs she could see jumping in a field being on the plate for Sunday lunch had a profound effect on her thinking about the status of non-human animals.

“Something happened to me which rocked my world. I developed a strong aversion to meat products, but I could not explain it and I was not in a position to change my diet because I was too young,” she remembers.

At 13 she became involved in animal rights and participated in various campaigns. Back in the 1970s little was known or spoken about veganism, so it took the young Jeanette a while to reach the conclusion that veganism was not just about avoiding eating and using animal products. For her it was about human ethics, compassion, justice and human rights.

She started a science degree at Keele University but was forced to leave the programme because she refused to participate in animal experimentation or to document results from other people carrying them out. She decided that since she could not advance the cause of veganism through science, she’d try to do it via the law. She gained a Law and Sociology degree at Keele, followed by a Master’s in Law at Staffordshire University. She set up the International Vegan Rights Alliance in 2012. It grew fast and she ended up leaving her employment to focus entirely on developing an international network of vegan legal professions, promoting the legal protection of vegans around the world, and supporting vegans with their complaints.

Jeanette sees encouraging signs that veganism is gaining the recognition she believes it deserves. Since the formation of the campaign for vegan rights in 2012, vegans in Germany, Italy, Denmark and the UK are explicitly protected in law and there are pending cases in France, The Basque Country, Peru, Barbados and Switzerland. Jeanette explains that legal protection for vegans means that employers, schools and providers of services are required to adapt their policies and practices to accommodate the needs of vegans and comply with the prohibition on discrimination. This means that veganism is accessible to everyone and we move towards a vegan-friendly society, which benefits the campaign for animal rights.

“My vision is a world that is vegan,” she explains. “Veganism is a natural manifestation of concern about the welfare of non-human animals. The vegan diet is healthy at all stages of life, but veganism is not only about food choices, it’s about recognising the moral standing of other animals, their suffering and bringing about compassionate ways of living.”

Lancaster’s support for her PhD has been key in her mission, because it has given her the confidence and credibility to raise the profile of veganism in law, support and mentor lawyers and fight legal battles on behalf of vegans. Whilst at Lancaster she received ethics approval for the world’s first ‘vegan equality’ survey and was also awarded a grant to give a presentation at a conference in Australia. “This meant a huge amount to me, as it showed that the University had faith and confidence in me and that I had something important to contribute to the campaign for animal rights. I applied training I received at Lancaster to my future career.”