The NhRP Expands Mission & Work Beyond the Courtroom

Media Contact:
Lauren Choplin
856-381-9447

lchoplin@nonhumanrights.org
media@nonhumanrights.org

Nov. 2, 2016, New York, N.Y.—Nearly three years after the NhRP began its litigation campaign on behalf of four captive chimpanzees in New York State, the organization is moving into the public sphere and planning for continued expansion in the US and worldwide.

Two new staff members—Director of Public Affairs and Government Relations Matthew Dominguez and Campaigns Director Lisa Rainwater—will develop issue-oriented grassroots campaigns, implement a new program to empower and mobilize volunteers, and build a broad-based coalition of organizations and individuals united under the banner of the nonhuman rights mission.

“The NhRP’s expansion signals our continued commitment to using every tool available to effectively represent our clients—nonhuman animals—in having their fundamental rights recognized by law,” said NhRP President Steven M. Wise.

Designed to promote recognition of nonhuman rights at the local level in tandem with litigation, the campaigns will focus on ballot initiatives, referenda, ordinances, and calls to action. Coalition building will include outreach to and partnerships with animal protection, civil liberties, social justice, public interest, and environmental advocates, among many others.

At the same time, the NhRP will continue to work with teams of lawyers and animal advocates in countries outside the US to develop rights-based legislative and/or litigation campaigns suited to their respective legal systems.

Helping to foster the NhRP’s organizational growth is its new Director of Development Sue Lee K. Troutman, who has worked with various civil and human rights organizations, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, Equality Now, and the National LGBTQ Task Force.

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About the Nonhuman Rights Project

Founded in 1996 by attorney Steven M. Wise, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is the only civil rights organization working to achieve actual legal rights for members of species other than our own. Our mission is to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman animals from mere “things,” which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to “persons,” who possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty and those other legal rights to which evolving standards of morality, scientific discovery, and human experience entitle them. Our current plaintiffs are members of species who have been scientifically proven to be autonomous: currently, great apes, elephants, dolphins, and whales. We are working with teams of attorneys on four continents to develop campaigns to achieve legal rights for nonhuman animals that are suited to the legal systems of these countries. Our first cases were filed in December of 2013.

About NhRP President Steven M. Wise

Steven M. Wise began his mission to gain rights for nonhuman animals in 1985. He holds a J.D. from Boston University Law School and a B.S. in chemistry from the College of William and Mary. He has practiced animal protection law for 38 years and is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. Professor Wise taught the first class in “Animal Rights Law” at the Harvard Law School and is currently teaching “Animal Rights Jurisprudence” at the Lewis and Clark Law School and Vermont Law School. He is the author of four books: Rattling the Cage – Toward Legal Rights for Animals; Drawing the Line – Science and the Case for Animal Rights; Though the Heavens May Fall – The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery; and An American Trilogy – Death, Slavery, and Dominion Along the Banks of the Cape Fear River. His TED Talk from the TED2015 Conference in Vancouver, Canada was released in May of 2015, and has nearly one million views.