The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is an American nonprofit
animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...
organization seeking to change the legal status of at least some
nonhuman animals from that of
property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
to that of
persons
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
, with a goal of securing rights to bodily liberty (the right not to be imprisoned) and
bodily integrity
Bodily integrity is the inviolability of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination of human beings over their own bodies. In the field of human rights, violation of the bodily in ...
(the right not to be experimented on).
The NhRP works largely through state-by-state litigation in what it determines to be the most appropriate
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
jurisdictions and bases its arguments on existing scientific evidence concerning
self-awareness
In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and lifesty ...
and
autonomy
In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
in nonhuman animals. Its sustained strategic litigation campaign has been developed primarily by a team of attorneys, legal experts, and volunteer law students who have conducted extensive research into relevant legal precedents.
The NhRP filed its first lawsuits in December 2013 on behalf of four
chimpanzees
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative the ...
held in captivity in New York State.
In late 2014, NhRP President
Steven Wise and Executive Director Natalie Prosin announced in the ''Global Journal of Animal Law'' that the Nonhuman Rights Project was expanding its work into other countries, beginning in Switzerland, Argentina, England, Spain, Portugal, and Australia.
The Nonhuman Rights Project was one of
Animal Charity Evaluators
Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), formerly known as Effective Animal Activism (EAA), is a US-based charity evaluator and effective altruism-focused nonprofit founded in 2012. ACE evaluates animal charities and compares the effectiveness of their ...
' Standout Charities from 2015 to 2019.
History
Founded by attorney
Steven M. Wise, the Nonhuman Rights Project began in 2007 as a project of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights.
In 2012, the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights officially changed its name to the Nonhuman Rights Project.
Mission and goals
According to the NhRP's website, the mission of the Nonhuman Rights Project is, through education and litigation, to change the common law 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. To advance this mission, the NhRP's specific goals are:
#To persuade a United States state high court to declare that a specific nonhuman animal is a legal person who possesses the capacity for a specific legal right.
#To persuade US state high courts to increase the number of legal rights of any nonhuman animal who is declared to be a legal person to the degree to which it should be entitled.
#To persuade US state high courts to declare that appropriate nonhuman animals possess the capacities for legal rights and to extend legal rights to them accordingly.
#To educate the legal profession and judiciary about the legal, social, historical and political justice of the Nonhuman Rights Project's arguments.
#To communicate to the public and media the NhRP's mission and the justice of recognizing specific nonhuman animals as legal persons.
#To educate the courts, the legal profession, the media, and the public about the state of current knowledge about the cognition of those nonhuman animals who are, or who might be, plaintiffs in the Nonhuman Rights Project's lawsuits.
Legal claims
The NhRP argues that nonhuman animals who are scientifically proven to be self-aware, autonomous beings, such as
great apes
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...
,
elephants
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae and ...
,
dolphins
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (t ...
, and
whales
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...
, should be recognized as legal persons under U.S. common law, with the fundamental right to bodily liberty.
According to the NhRP, there is nothing in the common law that suggests that legal personhood is limited only to human beings, and certain species fit the profile that courts have used in the past to recognize legal personhood. The NhRP emphasizes the fact that currently all nonhuman animals are considered merely property, or legal "things", without the capacity for rights.
In an article published five months before the NhRP first filed suit, Chris Berdick of ''Boston Globe'' explains the organization's claims and strategy as follows:
''Somerset v. Stewart''
The NhRP's legal claims on behalf of captive nonhuman animals are based in part on the case of ''
Somerset v Stewart
''Somerset v Stewart'' (177298 ER 499(also known as ''Somersett's case'', ''v. XX Sommersett v Steuart and the Mansfield Judgment)'' is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on En ...
''.
In that 1772 case,
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, PC, SL (2 March 170520 March 1793) was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth, Scotland, before moving to Lond ...
, the chief justice of the English Court of King's Bench, issued a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a slave named
James Somerset James Somerset ( – after 1772) was an African man and the plaintiff in a pivotal court case that confirmed that slavery was not legal in England and Wales.
Biography
Somerset was born in West Africa around 1741. He was captured when he was about ...
; Somerset was subsequently freed. NhRP argues that it was the first time a human slave was considered to be a person and who was allowed to petition for and be granted the writ for habeas corpus.
The decision was made even though there was no precedent that it relied on. The NhRP views the writ of habeas corpus as a powerful form of redress for the denial of their plaintiffs' right to bodily liberty. Commenting on the importance of the Somerset case to the NhRP in a 2014 article by
Charles Siebert
Charles Alan Siebert (March 9, 1938 – May 1, 2022) was an American actor and television director. As an actor, he is probably best known for his role as Dr. Stanley Riverside II on the television series ''Trapper John, M.D.'', a role he portra ...
in ''
The New York Times Magazine
''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...
'', Wise said:
Opposition and counterarguments
Some legal scholars have publicly opposed the NhRP's mission and goals. Federal appeals judge
Richard Posner
Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American jurist and legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chica ...
, for example, is opposed to legal personhood for nonhuman animals on the basis that the law grants humans special status not because of their intelligence but out of "a moral intuition deeper than any reason that could be given for it and impervious to any reason that you or anyone could give against it."
Attorney and Pepperdine Professor of Law Richard Cupp has argued that
animal welfare
Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity ...
laws should be sufficient for ensuring the well-being of captive nonhuman animals and that the NhRP's strategy is unnecessarily extreme. In an interview with James Gorman of ''The New York Times'' following the organization's first lawsuits, Cupp said, "The courts would have to dramatically expand existing common law for the cases to succeed."
In response, the NhRP argues that an animal welfare approach is insufficient and ineffective in terms of ending the practice of keeping chimpanzees and other cognitively complex nonhuman animals in captivity and also does nothing to address the larger issue of their status as legal property.
Court cases
Tommy, Kiko, and Hercules and Leo
The NhRP filed its first lawsuits on December 2, 2013, in New York State on behalf of four captive chimpanzees, demanding that the courts grant them the right to bodily liberty via the writ of habeas corpus and to immediately send them to a sanctuary affiliated with the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance.
The NhRP's New York plaintiffs were Tommy, a privately owned chimpanzee living in a cage in a shed on a used trailer lot in Gloversville, NY; Kiko, a privately owned chimpanzee living on private property in Niagara Falls, NY; and Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees owned by New Iberia Research Center and loaned to the Anatomy Department at Stony Brook University for use in locomotion research.
In response to the lawsuit, Tommy's owner, Patrick Lavery, defended the chimpanzee's living conditions: "He's really got it good. He's got a lot of enrichment. He's got color TV, cable and a stereo."
All of the petitions were rejected.
On March 19, 2015, the case of Hercules and Leo was refiled,
and on April 20, 2015, Justice Barbara Jaffe issued an Order to Show Cause and Writ of Habeas Corpus.
A hearing was scheduled at which the State University of New York at Stoney Brook was ordered to show why Hercules and Leo should be not be released and transferred to the Save the Chimps sanctuary.
Because the order's title included the phrase "WRIT TO HABEAS CORPUS" it made headlines around the world and was misinterpreted as granting the right to liberty to a chimpanzee.
Justice Jaffe's order was amended and refiled with the phrase WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS manually crossed out.
A hearing was held on May 27 and on July 29, 2015, Justice Jaffe issued an order denying Hercules and Leo's petition.
Because the petition was reviewed as well as the reasoning in the decision, NhRP considered it to be a "one giant leap for the Nonhuman Rights Project in its fight for the fundamental rights of nonhuman animals."
Petition for a writ of habeas corpus
In filing the petitions NhRP's intent was:
1. To have the chimpanzees recognized as human-like beings with a common law right to liberty, specifically, to be recognized as autonomous and self-determining beings that cannot be legally considered as property.
and
2. To have the chimpanzees released and transferred to a North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA) sanctuary.
A
writ of habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
allows an individual to assert one's right to liberty and demand for release from unlawful imprisonment. The right to file the writ is protected in the US Constitution under Article 1, Section 9, and in New York State it is to be filed under article 70 which states that "a ''person'' illegally imprisoned or otherwise restrained with his liberty within the state ... may petition without notice for a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the cause of such detention and for deliverance." In order for their petitions to be considered, NhRP had to first show that the chimpanzees are persons who could file them.
NhRP's arguments were partially based on
precedent
A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great valu ...
, a legal term that encompasses all previous legal decisions and reasoning also known as
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
. These cases can be considered to be relevant and sometimes decisive to the current facts and circumstances at hand.
As its first step, NhRP argued that the legal term ''person'' is not a synonym for a human being, but instead refers to an entity with a capacity to possess legal rights. It emphasized that there are no necessary conditions for determining that an entity is a legal person, and that going back to the 18th century there have been cases granting legal rights to non human entities such as corporations. NhRP argued that the fact that a chimpanzee is not a human being should not prevent the argument that it is a legal person with a habeas corpus right to liberty.
It then made its central point, that based on previous common law decisions such as ''
Somerset v Stewart
''Somerset v Stewart'' (177298 ER 499(also known as ''Somersett's case'', ''v. XX Sommersett v Steuart and the Mansfield Judgment)'' is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on En ...
'', autonomy and self-determination are the human qualities that are intended to be protected by the writ of habeas corpus. And because chimpanzees are now known to possess the same qualities, the habeas corpus right to liberty should be expanded to the chimpanzee species. More than thirty pages of the petition were devoted to going over chimpanzee evolutionary development, neurology, social practices and complex cognition. NhRP argued that a chimpanzee possesses qualities such as:
NhRP emphasized that it was not seeking a granting of human rights for its plaintiffs but only a narrow expansion of the right to bodily liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus.
Initial holdings
All three petitions where denied on the grounds that the chimpanzees were not persons and thus the issues in the petitions would not be considered. In an hour long hearing regarding Tommy's Third District case, the Hon. Joseph Sise stated that:
The judge in Kiko's Fourth district case, the Hon. Ralph A. Boniello III, also held a hearing, denying the NhRP's petition on the grounds that Kiko is not a person for purposes of habeas corpus and stating that he did not want to be the first "to make that leap of faith."
The judge in Hercules' and Leo's Second District case, the Hon. W. Gerard Asher, did not hold a hearing, writing in a decision that he was denying the petition for habeas corpus on the basis that chimpanzees are not considered legal persons.
Appeals
=Tommy's case
=
The NhRP appealed the lower court's decision in Tommy's case.
The appeal was granted and oral argument took place on October 8, 2014 before the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department in Albany, NY. The hearing received significant media attention.
On December 5, 2014, the appellate court issued its ruling.
In its decision the court confirmed the earlier ruling that there is no precedent for finding that an animal could be thought of as a person. It further reasoned that in accordance with the social contract one's rights cannot come without obligations:
On December 18, 2014, the NhRP announced that it had filed a motion for permission to appeal to New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals.
=Kiko's case
=
The NhRP also appealed the lower court's decision in Kiko's case.
Like Tommy's, Kiko's appeal was also granted and oral argument took place on December 2, 2014 before the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Fourth Department in Rochester, NY. At Kiko's hearing the two main issues were: how could it be determined that a chimpanzee actually wanted to be released, and could a transfer to another location be considered as a release from confinement, the purpose of the writ of ''habeas corpus''.
NhRP argued that the issue of whether or not Kiko actually desired to be released was regularly resolved in cases dealing with autonomous and self-determining human beings who at that time are incompetent or are too young to make those decisions. When asked which one of those grounds is most similar to the circumstances of this petition, NhRP replied that a chimpanzee is more akin to a child near the age of five rather than a mentally disabled adult.
On January 2, 2015, the appellate court issued its decision, denying the petition on the grounds that "habeas corpus does not lie where a petitioner seeks only to change the conditions of confinement rather than the confinement itself. We therefore conclude that habeas corpus does not lie herein."
Commenting on the Court's decision in a blog post on the NhRP's website, Wise wrote:
On April 20, 2015, the NhRP filed a motion for permission to appeal in New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals.
Hercules and Leo reconsidered
![Hercules and Leo Habeas Corpus Order](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Hercules_and_Leo_Habeas_Corpus_Order.jpg)
NhRP also filed an appeal to Hercules and Leo's lower court decision. On April 3, 2014 the appeal was denied by the Second Appellate Department in Brooklyn, this dismissal was based on a technicality and NhRP's briefs were not considered.
On March 19, 2015, NhRP was allowed to refile the petition at the county court in Manhattan which is under the First Appellate Department.
Justice Barbara Jaffe was assigned to the case.
On April 20, 2015, Justice Barbara Jaffe issued an Order To Show Cause & Writ of Habeas Corpus.
A hearing was scheduled at which the State University of New York at Stoney Brook was ordered to show why Hercules and Leo should be not be released and transferred to the Save the Chimps sanctuary.
Because this order was titled as ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE & WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS it immediately made the headlines around the world as granting the right to liberty to the chimpanzees.
"Justice Recognizes Two Chimpanzees as Legal Persons, Grants them Writ of Habeas Corpus" was the headline of NhRP's breaking news post on its website.
Because of the global headlines, Justice Jaffe's order was amended and refiled with the phrase WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS manually crossed out.
It is likely that this was done to make it clear that the order was granted only to allow a hearing for an evaluation of arguments made in NhRP's petition.
The next day NhRP updated its posting stating that "the Order does not necessarily mean that the Court has declared that the two chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, are legal persons for the purpose of an Article 70 common law writ of habeas corpus proceeding."
On May 27, a hearing was held for the purposes of the initial evaluation of Hercules and Leo's Petitions.
Justice Jaffe's ruling was entered on July 29, 2015.
In her ruling Justice Jaffe stated that in making her decision she was obliged to follow the ruling of a higher court. Because of a conflict in relevant decisions of between the First Department and the Fourth Department where Tommy's case was decided, Justice Jaffe relied on the Third District's Tommy decision.
That appellate court ruled that a chimpanzee could not be considered a person with the right to liberty because there is no precedent for such a decision, and that rights cannot be granted without social responsibilities. She further stated that even if she was not bound by the Third Department decision in Tommy it should be up to the legislature or higher courts given their role in setting government policy.
Even though the petition was denied, NhRP interpreted Justice Jaffe's decision as a victory. In his posting titled "That's One Small Step for a Judge, One Giant Leap for the Nonhuman Rights Project", Wise emphasized the fact that Justice Jaffe agreed with NhRP when finding that "'persons' are not restricted to human beings, and that who is a 'person' is not a question of biology, but of public policy and principle."
He finished by quoting the last paragraph of Justice Jaffe's decision:
Despite the ruling in its favor, the university released an official statement that it would no longer conduct scientific studies on Hercules and Leo. An appeal was filed in August 2015, however that December Stony Brook transferred the chimpanzees back the New Iberia Research Center, ending the case, since the New York State Court no longer had jurisdiction over them.
On September 1, 2015, NhRP's requests to file appeals to the highest court in Tommy's and Kiko's cases were denied.
On December 2, 2015 NhRP refiled Tommy's petition in the First Department in Manhattan, New York City, the same district as the one where Justice Jaffe issued her ruling.
Happy
In May of 2021, NhRP filed what has arguably been referred to as the most important animal rights case of the 21st century with the
New York Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six Associate Judges who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by t ...
. The Court agreed to hear a habeas corpus case of the
Asian elephant
The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus ''Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the no ...
Happy, who has been at the Bronx Zoo for over four decades. Happy was the first Asian elephant to pass a
mirror test
The mirror test—sometimes called the mark test, mirror self-recognition (MSR) test, red spot technique, or rouge test—is a behavioral technique developed in 1970 by American psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. as an attempt to determine whether an ...
, commonly used by scientists to gauge self-awareness through an animal’s ability to recognize itself back in 2005.
This case is the first time in history the highest court of any English-speaking jurisdiction agreed to hear a habeas corpus case brought on behalf of someone other than a human being. In 2018, the NhRP brought a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on Happy’s behalf, seeking recognition of her fundamental right to bodily liberty and transfer to an elephant sanctuary. Shortly after, Happy became the first elephant in the world to be granted a habeas corpus hearing to determine the lawfulness of her imprisonment. The lower court heard several days of arguments relating to Happy's rights, but the trial court “regrettably” denied the petition on technical grounds. The Court of Appeals agreed to hear arguments regarding whether Happy, an elephant and an autonomous nonhuman animal should be released pursuant to habeas corpus. Happy is secluded in an elephant exhibit without other elephants to socialize with in the Bronx Zoo.
On June 14, 2022, New York State Court of Appeals ruled 5-2 that elephants have no constitutional rights, with Chief Judge Janet DiFiore writing in the majority decision, “nothing in our precedent or, in fact, that of any other state or federal court, provides support for the notion that the writ of habeas corpus is or should be applicable to nonhuman animals.”
The NhRP and PETA's slavery lawsuit
In October 2011, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (
PETA
Peta or PETA may refer to:
Acronym
* Pembela Tanah Air, a militia established by the occupying Japanese in Indonesia in 1943
* People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an American animal rights organization
* People Eating Tasty Animals, an ...
) filed a complaint in a California federal district court alleging that
SeaWorld
SeaWorld is an American theme park chain with headquarters in Orlando, Florida. It is a proprietor of marine mammal parks, oceanariums, animal theme parks, and rehabilitation centers owned by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment (one park will be ...
was enslaving its captive
orcas
The orca or killer whale (''Orcinus orca'') is a toothed whale belonging to the oceanic dolphin family, of which it is the largest member. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Orcinus'' and is recognizable by its black-and-white pat ...
in violation of the orcas' rights under the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representative ...
.
The NhRP, while acknowledging that the orcas might be considered slaves according to common usage of the term, vehemently opposed the lawsuit on the grounds that it was strategically misguided and counter-productive; the NhRP's critique highlighted the existence of differing strategies for achieving rights and protections for nonhuman animals.
"The claim that an orca is enslaved within the meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment is unlikely even to receive a single vote from a federal appellate court in 2011," Wise wrote on the NhRP's website. "It is unthinkable that the present United States Supreme Court would agree."
In January 2012, the presiding judge, the Hon. Richard Miller, granted permission to the NhRP to appear in the case as an
amicus curiae
An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision on ...
(or Friend of the Court) to, as Wise said, "ensure that the orcas' best interests are being properly represented, that their legal status is advanced, and that an unfavorable ruling inflicts the least possible harm on the development of an animal rights jurisprudence."
In February 2012, the case was dismissed. The judge wrote in his ruling that "the only reasonable interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment's plain language is that it applies to persons, and not to non-persons such as orcas."
In an interview with the blog ''Earth in Transition'', Wise said of the ruling
Documentary
Documentary filmmakers
D.A. Pennebaker
Donn Alan Pennebaker (; July 15, 1925 – August 1, 2019) was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc ...
and
Chris Hegedus
Chris Hegedus (born April 23, 1952) is an American documentary filmmaker. She and her husband, filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, founded the company Pennebaker Hegedus Films.
Hegedus was nominated for an Academy Award for ''The War Room'', a behind-th ...
announced in July 2012 that their next project, ''
Unlocking the Cage
''Unlocking the Cage'' is a 2016 American documentary film about the work of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) and lawyer Steven Wise's efforts to grant limited legal personhood rights to chimpanzees, whales, dolphins and elephants. It was direct ...
'', would follow the NhRP's efforts to achieve legal rights for nonhuman animals.
In April 2014, Pennebaker-Hegedus Films released a preview of the as-yet-unfinished documentary in the form of a ''New York Times'' Op-Doc called ''Animals Are Persons Too''.
''Unlocking the Cage'' was released in 2016.
Animal Charity Evaluators review
Animal Charity Evaluators
Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), formerly known as Effective Animal Activism (EAA), is a US-based charity evaluator and effective altruism-focused nonprofit founded in 2012. ACE evaluates animal charities and compares the effectiveness of their ...
(ACE) named NhRP one of its Standout Charities in its 2015 and 2016 annual charity recommendations.
ACE designates as Standout Charities those organizations which they do not feel are as strong as their Top Charities, but which excel in at least one way and are exceptionally strong compared to animal charities in general.
Among the NhRP's strengths, according to ACE, is the fact that it is the only organization they know of directly working towards legal personhood for animals, which "could be the most promising avenue for the proper consideration of nonhuman animals in our society." The NhRP has also garnered public attention with their cases, which has plausibly helped the animal advocacy cause. ACE states as a weakness NhRP's focus on certain cognitively complex animals, and uncertainty about whether the NhRP's activities will eventually expand to larger groups of animals.
See also
*
Non-human animal personhood
*
Great ape personhood
Great ape personhood is a movement to extend personhood and some legal protections to the non-human members of the great ape family: chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans.
Advocates include primatologists Jane Goodall and Dawn Prince-Hughes, e ...
*
Animal testing on non-human primates
Experiments involving non-human primates (NHPs) include toxicity testing for medical and non-medical substances; studies of infectious disease, such as HIV and hepatitis; neurological studies; behavior and cognition; reproduction; genetics; and ...
*
Jane Goodall
Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best know ...
*
List of animal rights advocates
Advocates of animal rights support the philosophy of animal rights. They believe that many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as in avoiding suff ...
*
List of animal rights groups
This list of animal rights groups consists of groups in the animal rights movement. Such animal rights groups work towards their ideals, which include the viewpoint that animals should have equivalent rights to humans, such as not being "used" in ...
*
Timeline of animal welfare and rights in the United States
This page is a timeline of the major events in the history of animal welfare and rights in the United States.
Big picture
Timeline
See also
* Timeline of animal welfare and rights
*Timeline of animal welfare and rights in Europe
*Anim ...
Notes
Further reading
*
Wise, Steven M. ''Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals'', Perseus Publishing, 2000.
*
Wise, Steven M. ''Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights'', Perseus Publishing, 2005.
*
Wise, Steven M. ''Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery'', Da Capo Press, 2005.
*
Wise, Steven M. ''An American Trilogy - Death, Slavery and Dominion Along the Banks of the Cape Fear River'', Da Capo Press, 2009
*Gorman, Jim
"Considering the Humanity of Nonhumans" ''The New York Times'', December 9, 2013.
*Keim, Brandon
"A Chimp's Day in Court: Inside the Historic Demand for Nonhuman Rights" ''Wired'', December 6, 2013.
*Morin, Roc
"A Lawyer Makes the Case for Chimpanzee Personhood" ''Vice'', October 13, 2014.
*Prosin, Natalie
"Corporations have legal rights. Chimpanzees should have them too."''The Washington Post'', September 9, 2014.
*
Schulz, William F.br>
"Are Animal Rights Human Rights?" ''The Huffington Post'', December 17, 2013.
*
Siebert, Charles.br>
"Should a Chimp Be Able To Sue Its Owner?" ''The New York Times Magazine'', April 23, 2014.
*Ershov, Kirill.&nbs
"For a Narrow Expansion of Liberty — A Summary of Recent Cases Filed on Behalf of Four Chimpanzees" ''Scientia Salon,'' April 16, 2015.
External links
The Nonhuman Rights ProjectNorth American Primate Sanctuary AllianceSteven Wise on ''The Colbert Report''Gooseberry Productions' Video Interviews with Steven Wisein ''
The Oregonian
''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 185 ...
''
NhRPon ''
The Diane Rehm Show
''The Diane Rehm Show'' was a call-in show based in the United States that aired nationally on NPR (National Public Radio). In October 2007, ''The Diane Rehm Show'' was named to the Audience Research Analysis list of the top ten most powerful nati ...
''
Steven Wiseon
Wisconsin Public Radio
Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) is a network of 34 public radio stations in the state of Wisconsin. WPR's network is divided into two distinct analog services, the ''Ideas Network'' and the ''NPR News & Music Network,'' as well as the ''All Classi ...
''New York Times'' Op-Docby
D.A. Pennebaker
Donn Alan Pennebaker (; July 15, 1925 – August 1, 2019) was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sc ...
and
Chris Hegedus
Chris Hegedus (born April 23, 1952) is an American documentary filmmaker. She and her husband, filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, founded the company Pennebaker Hegedus Films.
Hegedus was nominated for an Academy Award for ''The War Room'', a behind-th ...
: "Animals Are Persons Too"
"Are Chimps People Too? The Potential Legal Evolution" - Video from ''The Wall Street Journal'' "Short Answer" Series
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1995 establishments in the United States
Animal rights organizations
501(c)(3) organizations
Non-profit organizations based in Florida
Animal welfare organizations based in the United States