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 a 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. The project includes the University of Greenwich, the 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 Restorative Justice within Environmental Courts.
I am also a member of The Multispecies Collective – a collaborative group of researchers working together with practitioners to create knowledge, theory and practice for positive change toward futures of flourishing for animals, nature and society.
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 1(1):29-50.
Banwell, S. & Walliss, J. (2024). ‘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.
In my third monograph – An Intersectional Analysis of Climate Change and Atrocity Crimes: Life on Earth is in Crisis (2026) – I address 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 confined and free-living nonhuman animals (as well as ecosystems more broadly).
I have produced an animation to accompany the publication of my second book, The War against Nonhuman Animals. It is called Why Is the War Against Nonhuman Animals A Crisis for Humans Too? It highlights the value of adopting plant-based diets.
I am regularly invited to give talks and deliver guest lectures on my research on multi-species justice and vegan criminology. For example, I recently delivered a keynote at The Politics of Not Eating Meat conference, in Amsterdam. The title of my paper was:
An Intersectional Analysis of the Impact of Anthropogenic Climate Change: Should We Introduce the Crime of Animal Ecocide?
I have appeared on two podcasts to promote my book The War Against Nonhuman Animals: Knowing Animals and Think like a Vegan.
