Activists have extensively mobilized throughout the world to improve the treatment of nonhuman animals. Steven Tauber writes about the Global Animal Advocacy Movement and its role in world politics.

So far, animals have little status in international law. Cebuan Bliss and Andrea Schapper argue that a new UN organisation, and a new Sustainable Development Goal, should be created to recognise animal interest and welfare.

On his walks with Bento by a Maine port, Jason Read wonders if the Anthropocene challenges the human ascendance and power over nature. Yet, as Marx and Spinoza both understood, old illusions die hard.

Animal protection has long been a topic of debate and regulation but has been neglected in world politics. Judith Renner shows how two discourses of protection influenced the EU’s seal products ban.

The study of International Relations has mostly ignored the role of animals in world politics. Introducing a new special issue, Joana Pereira argues that it is time to challenge human dominance and social hierarchies.

Debate about a global deforestation treaty has only begun. Stefanie Fishel argues that trees and their forest ecosystems are a major site of crisis and possibility as we push deeper into the Anthropocene.