Saskia Stucki Receives Latsis Prize for Research on Animal Rights

(CONNECT) The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) is awarding its prestigious Latsis Swiss Science Prize to Saskia Stucki this year. The legal scholar is being honored for her pioneering research in animal law with cross-references to environmental law, international humanitarian law and human rights. The SNSF awards this prize, endowed with 100,000 Swiss francs, annually on behalf of the Geneva-based International Latsis Foundation. It honors special achievements in basic research and is awarded to young researchers whose work stands out for its independence and high quality.

Stucki is a Senior Lecturer at the ZHAW School of Management and Law, where she set up and heads the Center for Animal Rights and the Environment (CARE). She also works at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zurich (UZH) at the Chair of Public Law, Environmental Law and Energy Law and is habilitating at the University of Basel.

"I consider this award a great honor and recognition, not only for me and my research, but also for animal rights as a whole," the researcher was quoted as saying in a statement from the Winterthur-based ZHAW. The ZHAW considers it "particularly remarkable" that Stucki is the first scientist from a Swiss university of applied sciences to receive this prestigious award, "a strong signal for the growing importance of application-oriented, practice-oriented research in the international top field".

"I am currently particularly interested in the relationship between animal, human and environmental rights as well as the analysis of new court rulings," Stucki explains in an interview with UZH on the occasion of the award ceremony. Up to now, animal welfare has almost always taken a back seat to basic human rights such as economic freedom or freedom of research. "Rights for animals would provide stronger and more enforceable protection." ce/mm