Amy P Wilson

Senior Adjunct Lecturer

Amy P Wilson (BCom, LLB, LLM, LLD Candidate) is the co-founder of Animal Law Reform South Africa, and was the Executive Director between March 2022 and February 2023.

She is a licensed attorney with over 12 years of professional legal experience. She is an LLD candidate and researcher focusing on the intersection of the rights of humans, nonhuman animals and Nature in law and policy and creative approaches to the attainment of an inclusive system of justice. Amy is an Independent Expert with the United Nations in Harmony with Nature Programme and a founding steering committee member of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature: Africa Hub. She is a Lecturer and Research Associate with the University of Johannesburg and a Senior Adjunct Lecturer with the University of the Western Cape. Amy is the first South African to graduate with a master’s degree in animal law, leads a number of animal protection organisations throughout Africa and has worked with several animal nonprofits in the USA and internationally. Amy graduated with her BCOM and LLB Degrees from the University of Johannesburg and during her legal studies, established the first “Animals in Law” group at UJ. Amy is a qualified attorney who practiced for over 6 years including as a Senior Associate in the corporate commercial department at Africa’s largest law firm ENS Africa and an international law firm, Hogan Lovells. In academia, Amy has worked as a Fellow specialising in aquatic animal law and with the Animal Law Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland and has worked at UCLA University of California, Los Angeles Law School as the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy Fellow. Amy has been published in international peer-reviewed journals and has authored several book chapters. She is currently co-authoring a book on aquatic animal law and co-editing the first animal law book in South Africa with Professor Melanie Murcott. In May 2022, Amy co-taught the first animal law course in South Africa with Professor David Bilchitz which they taught again in 2023.