The first International Conference on Veterinary and Animal Ethics (ICVAE) held in September 2011 saw leading experts from across the world come together to discuss the most important issues of animal welfare in contemporary veterinary practice and research. This is the extended proceedings of that conference, enabling all those interested in this increasingly significant subject to benefit from the insights of those discussions.

The conference was divided into four sessions: Principles of veterinary and animal ethics; Justifying ends - the morality of animal use; Ethical analyses of animal use; and Cultural, political, legal and economic considerations. Each session contained four or five papers, and these are presented here in full, as well as the transcribed question and answer sessions at the end of each paper, and a short post-presentation reflection from each author. Also included is the debate on the motion 'Is it better to have lived and lost than never to have lived at all?' which records three prepared responses to the question as well as registrants' comments from the floor.

KEY FEATURES