I earned my post-graduate degree in law from Oxford University and qualified as a barrister at the Bar of England and Wales. After nearly 1.5 years at international criminal courts/tribunals and 1.5 years teaching on a Swiss university LLM course, I am now working towards my doctorate in animal rights philosophy, theory, law, and policy, at the Universities of Basel and Antwerp. I hold various scholarships/fellowships, and am thus funded by the Finnish, Swiss, and Belgian governments/research institutions. In my spare time, I work, pro bono, as a legal correspondent moot coordinator to a UK animal law centre, a consultant composing law and policy recommendations for the European Union on behalf of the Dutch coalition for animal NGOs, and a legal and policy advisor to various animal NGOs across Europe. In the past, as Moot Court Training Expert for the International Commission of Jurists, I founded, developed, and ran the first moot on international human and animal rights law, held at the national level in Myanmar. I am now the Founder and Director of the first world moot on international law and animal rights, comprising an international mooting competition and mooting/coaching training courses.

Wasseem is an Egyptian-Canadian freelance consultant experienced in both policy and research and based out of Glasgow, Scotland. He has over 13 years of varied international experience across the fisheries and aquaculture sector and holds degrees in applied aquatic ecology. Wasseem’s doctoral studies on the welfare of farmed Nile tilapia have led him further into work on fish welfare. He has experience working on fisheries and aquaculture studies for a wide range of clients including the FAO, the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee (PECH), WorldFish, Cefas, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, ASC, the Marine Conservation Society UK and WWF-UK with extensive travel across Europe, North America, Africa and the Middle East.

Altamush is a Pakistan-based animal rights lawyer currently pursuing an LLM in Animal Law at the Center for Animal Law Studies, Lewis and Clark Law School. He will be pursuing an Environmental Law, Natural Resources and Energy Law LLM at Lewis and Clark. He holds an LLM from the University of Michigan Law School, a BA-LLB from Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan and is a Co-Founder/Director of Charity Doings Foundation (charitydoings.org). Altamush is also an Animal Welfare Ambassador to Comprehensive Disaster Response Services (CDRSWorld.org), both incorporated in Pakistan/USA, and is a member of the American Bar Association Animal Law, International Animal Law, and the Climate Change & Human Rights Subcommittees, and of the newly formed Animal Law Working Commission Group for The Union of International Associations (UIA).

He served as a Legislative Advocacy Intern at Best Friends Animal Society in 2022 and is currently serving as a Humane Policy Volunteer Leader at the Humane Society of the United States and a Government Relations Intern at The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for 2023.