I am leading an emerging and pioneering sub-discipline within green criminology: vegan and more-than-human criminology. My contributions to this have been described as “novel”, “ground-breaking” and “unique.”
My research interests include:
- Applying international humanitarian law to nonhuman animals
- Reproductive violence and nonhuman animals
- Treating nonhuman animals as victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity
- Nonhuman animals and legal personhood
- Ecocide, deforestation and animal agriculture
- The implications of animal agriculture for climate change
- The coercive confinement of nonhuman animals
Based on my expertise in this area I was part of a group that submitted UK amicus brief to the Supreme Court of California supporting the Nonhuman Rights Project who are seeking legal personhood for nonhuman animals. The 2021 UK amicus brief was cited by Judge Rowan Wilson who infamously dissented the decision to refuse legal personhood to Happy the elephant. I have written about granting nonhuman animals legal personhood in my second monograph: The war against nonhuman animals.
I am the Co-PI on the EU Horizon/UKRI project -Transformative Change for Biodiversity and Equity which secured £2.16 million with UoG Natural Resources Institute (NRI), and partners from the Netherlands, Finland, France, Colombia, Cameron and Kenya. My role is to assist with the deliverables around transformative change in relation to rights of nature, ecocide and legal personhood for nonhuman animals.
Three of my most recent publications address the issue of the violence(s) of factory farming and the harms of the animal-industrial complex. My research outlines the environmental benefits of dismantling the animal-industrial complex for both human and nonhuman populations.
Banwell, S. (2023). The War Against Nonhuman Animals: A Non-Speciesist Understanding of Gendered Reproductive Violence. Palgrave Macmillan.
Banwell, S. (2024). Rape, sexual violence and forced pregnancy: The expressions and consequences of reproductive violence committed during the war against nonhuman animals. Animal Liberation. Article can be accessed here
Banwell, S. & Walliss, J. (in press). ‘They have literally given up on life’: A review of the experiences of nonhuman animals subject to reproductive violence and coercion on factory and puppy farms. In G. Hunnicutt, k. Mentor & R. Twine (Eds.), Violence and Harm in the Animal Industrial Complex: Human-Animal Entanglements. Routledge.
My third monograph, An Intersectional Analysis of Climate Change and Atrocity Crimes: Life on Earth is in Crisis, is due in 2025. It addresses the impact of climate change across human and nonhuman populations. The book highlights the long-term environmental impacts of industrial animal agriculture. It also considers the impacts of deforestation for both ‘livestock’ and free-living nonhuman animals (as well as ecosystems more broadly).
I have produced an animation to accompany the publication of my second book. It is called Why is the war against nonhuman animals a crisis for humans too? It highlights the value of adopting plant-based diets. Retrieved from YouTube.
I am regularly invited to give talks and deliver guest lectures on my research on multi-species justice and vegan criminology. For example, in January I was invited by Essex University to run a seminar called Disruptors: Scholarship for beyond human revolution. And most recently (October 2024) I delivered a session called Protecting Nonhuman Animals from Ecological Destruction: Should We Introduce the Crime of Animal Ecocide? for the Animals and Society Research imitative.
I have appeared on two podcasts to promote my book The War against nonhuman animals: Knowing Animals and Think like a Vegan.
In terms of my advocacy work, for my third book I will be interviewing animal rights activists, within and outside of academia. At the University of Greenwich, I am a member of the Green Champions Network. This is part of the boarder University sustainability, climate change and green agenda. In this role, I recommend plant-based catering at university events.
