The power of persistence in the fight for nonhuman rights

Legal firsts

Habeas corpus for nonhuman animals

The NhRP has secured the world’s first habeas corpus hearings on behalf of nonhuman animals in our chimpanzee and elephant rights cases. Habeas corpus is a centuries-old means of testing the lawfulness of one’s imprisonment before a court. It was used extensively in the 18th and 19th centuries to fight human slavery, and abolitionists often petitioned for writs of habeas corpus on behalf of enslaved individuals. The most well known such case is Somerset v. Stewart (1772) in which the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales granted the writ to an enslaved human being, freeing him unequivocally from servitude and transforming him from a legal thing with no rights to a legal person with fundamental rights.

As NhRP President Steven M. Wise explains in his 2015 TED Talk, for thousands of years, nonhuman animals have been viewed and treated as mere things under the law, with no more rights than a television or car. These habeas corpus hearings are significant because, for the first time in US and global legal history, courts have heard arguments in support of the legal personhood and right to bodily liberty of chimpanzees and elephants (our first clients). Learn more about our chimpanzee clients Hercules and Leo’s habeas corpus hearing in this story in The New York Times and in Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker’s critically acclaimed documentary about the NhRP, Unlocking the Cage. Learn more about our elephant client Happy’s habeas corpus hearings in this story in The Atlantic.

In May of 2022, the New York Court of Appeals—one of the most influential state courts in the United States—became the first US state high court and the highest court of an English-speaking jurisdiction to hear a case demanding a legal right for a nonhuman being. Watch the hearing here.

Historic rulings

Judges on New York’s highest court write powerful dissents in support of our elephant client’s right to liberty

Judge Rowan D. Wilson: “We should recognize Happy’s right to petition for her liberty not just because she is a wild animal who is not meant to be caged and displayed, but because the rights we confer on others define who we are as a society … When the majority answers, ‘No, animals cannot have rights,’ I worry for that animal, but I worry even more greatly about how that answer denies and denigrates the human capacity for understanding, empathy and compassion.”

Judge Jenny Rivera:  “Any myth that Happy is content in this environment is laid bare by the cruel reality of her existence. Day in and day out, Happy is anything but happy. There lies the rub—Happy is an autonomous, if not physically free, being. The law has a mechanism to challenge the inherently harmful confinement, and Happy should not be denied the opportunity to pursue and obtain appropriate relief by writ of habeas corpus. I dissent … A gilded cage is still a cage. Happy may be a dignified creature, but there is nothing dignified about her captivity.”

In June of 2022, following the historic hearing in our elephant client Happy’s case, two judges on New York’s highest court wrote courageous dissents that link “our country’s tortured history of oppression and subjugation” of humans based on immutable characteristics such as race, gender, culture, national origin, and citizenship to the suffering and rightlessness of nonhuman animals. In so doing, Judge Rowan D. Wilson and Judge Jenny Rivera have not only challenged an unjust legal status quo that has existed for centuries; they’re also helping to light the way to a more just future for members of other species—just as courageous dissents by judges have done for humans throughout US legal history.

Together the two dissents number close to 100 pages, compared to 17 pages that form what we, like the dissenting judges, see as the majority’s legally wrong decision. You can read the decision and the dissents here (the dissents begin on p. 18).

We look forward to citing the dissents in our elephant rights case already underway in California and in the new cases we’ll file across the US and in other countries in the coming months. Visit our blog to read our summary of the dissents, which will be an important part of the fight for nonhuman animal rights in New York and beyond for years to come.

Bronx Supreme Court: Happy “should be treated with respect and dignity”

In 2020, Bronx Supreme Court Justice Alison Y. Tuitt issued a decision in our elephant client Happy’s case after an unprecedented 13 hours of oral argument, writing that the Court “agrees [with the NhRP] that happy is more than just a legal thing, or property. She is an intelligent, autonomous being who should be treated with respect and dignity, and who may be entitled to liberty … the arguments advanced by the NhRP are extremely persuasive for transferring Happy from her solitary, lonely one-acre exhibit at the Bronx Zoo to an elephant sanctuary.” Learn more about the significance of Justice Tuitt’s decision here.

New York high court judge rejects chimpanzees’ legal thinghood

In 2018, New York Court of Appeals Justice Eugene M. Fahey issued an opinion in our chimpanzee rights cases in which he urged his fellow judges to treat the question of nonhuman animals’ rightlessness as “a deep dilemma of ethics and policy that demands our attention. To treat a chimpanzee as if he or she had no right to liberty protected by habeas corpus is to regard the chimpanzee as entirely lacking independent worth, as a mere resource for human use, a thing the value of which consists exclusively in its usefulness to others. Instead, we should consider whether a chimpanzee is an individual with inherent value who has the right to be treated with respect … The issue whether a nonhuman animal has a fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus is profound and far-reaching. It speaks to our relationship with all the life around us. Ultimately, we will not be able to ignore it. While it may be arguable that a chimpanzee is not a ‘person,’ there is no doubt that it is not merely a thing.”

Justice Fahey also criticized the Appellate Division decisions in our chimpanzee rights cases, making clear they were wrongly decided on the grounds that the NhRP’s clients aren’t members of the human species and can’t bear legal duties. Justice Tuitt favorably cited to Justice Fahey’s opinion in her decision in Happy’s case. Learn more about the significance of Justice Fahey’s opinion here.

New York Appellate Court: Nonhuman legal personhood is “common knowledge”

A month after Justice Fahey’s opinion, New York’s Fourth Judicial Department cited to Kiko’s chimpanzee rights case in People v. Graves, writing, “It is common knowledge that personhood can and sometimes does attach to nonhuman entities like corporations or animals.” Learn more about the significance of People v. Graves here.

Support from respected experts

Our nonhuman rights litigation has gained the support of experts on chimpanzee cognition and behavior, elephant cognition and behavior, habeas corpus, animal law, philosophy, and more. To read the affidavits and amicus briefs filed in our cases by Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Joyce Poole, Harvard Law Professor Laurence H. Tribe, and other experts, visit our clients’ court case timelines.

Legislation and grassroots advocacy

Since we expanded into grassroots advocacy, hundreds of people have joined us at rallies calling for our clients’ right to liberty and release to sanctuaries, over 100,000 emails have been sent to decision-makers including elected officials, and nearly two million people have signed Change.org petitions on their behalf. Media coverage of our rallies outside the Bronx Zoo has led to supportive statements from New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Mayor Bill de Blasio, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other prominent elected officials and public figures. Learn more about our grassroots advocacy campaigns here.

As we prepare to launch our first nonhuman rights ordinances at the local level, we’ve also begun to hear from and reach out to members of Congress about the possibility of pursuing federal legislation. We continue to work behind the scenes with elected officials across the US to learn more about their interest in nonhuman rights and, we hope, gain their support. We’ll share more on this front as soon as we can. Learn more about our legislation here.

Inspiring legal change internationally and building a global movement

In May of 2020, the Islamabad High Court in Pakistan relied on the NhRP’s cases in a decision that  “without any hesitation” affirmed the rights of nonhuman animals and specifically ordered the release to sanctuary of an elephant named Kaavan who was being held in solitary confinement at a zoo. Learn more about this decision here and here, and read a guest blog post by Kaavan’s lawyer here.

Litigation modeled on the NhRP’s has directly freed a chimpanzee named Cecilia from a zoo to a sanctuary in recognition of her personhood and rights and indirectly freed an orangutan named Sandra from a zoo to a sanctuary. Learn more about Cecilia here and Sandra here.

In 2019, the NhRP was invited to address Colombia’s highest court as it prepared to decide whether a spectacled bear named Chucho should be permitted to use habeas corpus to secure his freedom via litigation modeled on the NhRP’s. Watch the video address here and learn more about Chucho’s case here.

We have helped formed and provide ongoing guidance to nonhuman rights legal working groups around the world, with our colleagues in India and Israel set to file lawsuits in the first half of 2021. Learn more about our international collaborations here.

Education

NhRP staff regularly present at and participate in conferences on subjects related to nonhuman rights, such as animal law and the climate crisis. These conferences allow us to share our mission and work with others, learn about what others are working on, and identify opportunities for collaboration.

As a recognized expert in animal rights jurisprudence, NhRP President Steven M. Wise teaches and guest-lectures at law schools and in other forums all over the world to help inspire and prepare the next generation of attorneys and activists to fight for nonhuman rights. 

Changing the conversation

In the US and around the world, the NhRP is changing the conversation about what members of other species deserve under the law as we raise awareness among legal and non-legal audiences of the need and basis for nonhuman rights.

As we stress in our communications, outreach, and teaching and speaking engagements, animal welfare is about providing better conditions for nonhuman animals—for example, in circuses, zoos, laboratories, shelters, and factory farms. There are thousands of animal welfare organizations doing this important work, which originated in 19th century anti-cruelty legislation in the United Kingdom. Animal welfare laws regulate the manner in which we treat (and often exploit) nonhuman animals while still prioritizing the interests of humans and human institutions. The fight for nonhuman rights—rooted in antislavery movements that began in the eighteenth century and grew into a broad international human rights movement in the twentieth century—focuses on the fact that nonhuman animals have their own inherent interests, just as humans do, and calls for these interests to be protected.

As with human rights, nonhuman rights are based on fundamental values and principles of justice such as liberty, autonomy, equality, and fairness. Rights protect against wrongs that we as a society have deemed intolerable, such as detaining individuals against their will without sufficient cause or subjecting them to mental or physical torture. All of human history, up to and including the present moment, shows that the only way to truly protect human beings’ fundamental interests is to recognize their rights. It’s no different for nonhuman animals.

The NhRP is the only organization in the US dedicated solely to securing legal rights for nonhuman animals. Learn more about us here.