Within the grand scheme of Animal Rights Groups’ strategy to end logging, farming, ranching, hunting, trapping, fishing and virtually every other interaction directly or indirectly between humans and animals is the codification of a universal "animal cruelty" law. The Humane Society of the United States, together with its unofficial sister group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), has been preparing the legislative ground for such a law for the past five years. Now, it seems, HSUS and friends have struck upon a method to skirt the U.S. Congress and have their goal achieved via a legally binding international accord, the Earth Charter.

  The recent Second IUCN World Conservation Congress (October 4-11) held in Amman, Jordan saw 2000 participants from 140 nations converge to discuss and debate the importance of "ecosystem management" to the earth’s environmental agenda. Among the topics offered for consideration was the Earth Charter, a "statement of fundamental values to guide" humankind’s treatment and use of wildlife. The Earth Charter first came on the environmental scene at the 1992 "Earth Summit" held in Rio de Janeiro by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). At the Amman meetings, Conservation Force President John Jackson III noted the redrafted "Earth Charter" contained newly drafted "animal rights" (Principle 1) and "animal cruelty" language (Principle 15). According to Jackson, the fingerprints on those sections pointed to HSUS. Former HSUS President, John Hoyt, is a member of the Earth Charter Commission.

  A motion to have IUCN endorse and urge members to have its principles codified into law failed as the measure was tabled for "further consideration."� 

  Britain’s Queen Elizabeth outraged that nation’s anti-hunting zealots when a photo showing her Majesty appeared in the local newspapers administering the coup de grace to a wounded pheasant. The British League Against Cruel Sports irately questioned "the Queen’s moral judgment" in for not only engaging in the shooting sports but also "wringing the pheasant’s neck" with her bare hands. According to news accounts, the bird was taken from one of the royal hunting retriever’s mouth and upon seeing that it was only wounded, the Queen finished it off with a quick maneuver wildlife experts agree is a "most effective" and "humane" way of dispatching the bird.�