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The roots of change

Celebrating 30 years of the Nonhuman Rights Project

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Our story

In 1995, a lawyer named Steven M. Wise founded an organization with a unique and singular focus: securing legal rights for nonhuman animals. Through his decades of legal advocacy on behalf of members of other species, Steve had come to see animals’ rightlessness as the core obstacle to any legal effort to protect them from harm and help them find justice. 

Without rights, animals are legally equivalent to inanimate objects–trapped in a legal framework that says that their suffering matters only if advocates can prove humans have been harmed by the animals’ mistreatment. This legal framework, Steve concluded, was irrational, outdated, and wrong. So too was the centuries-old belief that humans are inherently superior to animals. Steve knew that with preparation and persistence, those with the power to create legal change would see this framework as irrational, outdated, and wrong, too.

Since 1995, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) has gone from one lawyer on a mission to a dedicated, experienced team and movement with supporters and allies across the US and around the world.  Year after year, drawing on the same infinite optimism and resolve our founder brought to the NhRP from the beginning. the work of the NhRP has fostered necessary and robust debate about animals’ legal status, widely disseminated the unjust life stories of animals in captivity, generated historic legal firsts, and created a climate in which support for legal rights for animals has steadily grown.

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“Even when demands for legal change are based upon scientific discovery, evolution in morality, and good public policy, as are the NhRP’s demands, they inevitably encounter strong headwinds at the beginning, for no legal exploitation that has existed for two millennia is going to be dissolved without a titanic struggle."
Steven M. Wise

The Nonhuman Rights Project has:

  • Changed the conversation about what nonhuman animals are entitled to under the law
  • Helped educate the next generation of animal rights lawyers
  • Achieved the world’s first habeas corpus hearings on behalf of nonhuman animals
  • Secured a historic opinion in support of chimpanzees’ right to liberty from a US state high court judge
  • Secured historic dissents in in support of elephants’ right to liberty from two US state high court judges
  • Helped develop and pass the first animal rights ordinance in the US
  • Gained steady support from diverse experts
  • Inspired legal change internationally
  • Brought nonhuman rights into the mainstream

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The NhRP remains the only organization of its kind in the world. As a result of the NhRP’s mission and work, courts and legislatures are beginning to recognize the systemic problem of nonhuman animals’ rightlessness, the suffering it causes, and the ways it undermines the values and principles of justice on which our own human rights depend. 

Real, lasting change takes time, and we’re still in the early stages of a movement that will continue to evolve for generations. By becoming a monthly donor to the NhRP, you’re planting the seeds for this change, helping the nonhuman rights movement steadily grow, and ensuring that legal progress for nonhuman animals continues. Become a monthly donor here. 

Tell us why you support recognition of nonhuman animal rights

Your support means everything to this cause, and every NhRP supporter has a unique and powerful story of support. Share why you’re passionate about our mission to secure legal rights for nonhuman animals and help inspire others to get involved. With your permission, we may highlight your contribution on social media channels, on our blog, or in an email newsletter. Submit your story here.

Explore stories of change

With the support of people across the globe who share our dedication to a future where nonhuman animals have access to justice, we’ve created the roots of change and cultivated vital progress. Below are select news and feature stories on the NhRP and our clients from the lead-up to the filing of our first lawsuit to the present.

Thank you for celebrating our 30th anniversary with us! We couldn’t do any of this work without you.

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