Some animals, such as elephants, orcas and chimpanzees, are extraordinarily cognitively complex. The Non-human Rights Project is fighting for these beings to be recognised as ‘persons’, which would grant them the right to freedom from captivity
British Legal authority Albert Dicey once said: “Where law ends,
tyranny begins.” American group the Non-human Rights Project (NhRP) is now
testing how far the rule of law extends. They argue that withholding from
sentient animals the right to freedom from unlawful imprisonment, contradicts
the principle that the law should apply equally to all.
On 13 November, the NhRP filed a law suit of habeas corpus
in Connecticut Superior Court on behalf of three elephants, Minnie, Beulah and Karen. Born in
the wild in 1960s and 1970s, the elephants were brought to America and
sold-on to Commerford’s travelling zoo in Connecticut. The Zoo has been cited
over 50 times by the US Department of Agriculture for failing to adhere to the
Animal Welfare Act.
The
NhRP is asking the court to recognise the elephants are not things, but persons
with rights, and to release them to a sanctuary. They are awaiting the judge’s
response.
In previous law suits, in 2014 and 2016 respectively, an
Argentinian court ruled captive chimpanzees Sandra and Cecelia were
entitled to habeas corpus. In June this year, however, a Manhattan court denied
the NhRP’s plea to secure habeas corpus for chimpanzees Kiko and Tommy.
NhRP president and chief attorney, Steve Wise, says the court’s
decision was based on Black’s Law Dictionary’s incorrect definition of a person
as someone with legal responsibilities as well as rights.
Wise said: “I asked if they had ever seen a five-year-old
child.” He argued that Black’s definition was based on a misreading of another
legal source. Black’s admitted their mistake but the court rejected the appeal,
saying the NhRP had overlooked that chimpanzees aren’t human.
Wise says that the word person “is not, never has been and never
will be a synonym of human”. He says while some humans and all non-human
animals have been categorised as things, things like corporations are
categorised as legal persons.
He added: “Last year, New Zealand designated a river and a
national park as persons. In 2000, the Supreme Court of India designated the
holy books of the Sikh religion as a person.”
Wise says that because people classify chimpanzees and elephantsas things, “these extraordinarily
complex non-human animals are the subject of tyranny”.
He told me that elephants live indoors during the cold
Connecticut winter. In the travelling circus, they are taken in trucks to
North-east United States, where they live in a temporary shelter before being
put in a fair.
He says: “They spend their days with people on their backs and
then they’re walking around in circles with men with bullhooks, and that’s all
they do.” Elephant experts Joyce Poole, Ed Stewart and Carol Buckley say the
use of bullhooks causes physical and psychological harm.
Karen was born in 1981. Taken from Africa, she was sold on to
Commerford’s in 1984. Beulah was born in Myanmar in 1967 and taken to the US
sometime after 1969. Sold to Commerford’s in 1973, she has been made to give
rides to adults and children – despite suffering from a foot disorder for
several years.
Minnie was born in Thailand and imported to the US in 1972 when
only two months old. She was bought by a petting zoo then sold in 1976 to
Commerford, which now uses her in Indian weddings, photo shoots and films, as
well as circuses and fairs. PETA documented an incident in 2000, when she was
witnessed being struck in the face by an employee, provoking her to pin two of her
handlers against a ramp. Minnie was found to have critically injured handlers
while children were riding on her – on three occasions. The Zoo still forces
her to give rides.
Despite his concern at these conditions, Wise says that his
focus is the animal’s rights, rather than their welfare: “Say Bill Gates kidnaps
my wife and I seek a writ of habeas corpus against him. We’re not going to have
a discussion in the courtroom about whether he can give her a better life than
I can. The issue is going to be, is she there against her will or not?”
Wise says even if the elephants have adequate food and
veterinary care, this doesn’t change the fact that they’ve been stripped of
their autonomy. He emphasises that this is what happens when people are in
prison. “An elephant in a travelling circus is a prisoner,” he says.
The NhRP cites detailed affidavits from elephant experts stating
that elephants are autonomous beings who value
their freedom. Karen McComb Professor of Animal Cognition and Communication at
the University of Sussex says elephants share many capacities with
humans that are characteristic of autonomy and self-determination. These
include self-awareness, empathy and awareness of death.
Wise finds it disturbing that judges appear to rule against the
NhRP for arbitrary or irrational reasons. He says this should be of concern to
everyone: “If you deny an autonomous being fundamental legal rights,
arbitrarily or irrationally, what’s to keep you from denying my rights
arbitrarily and irrationally?”
He says some of the courts recognise that some non-humans are
extraordinarily cognitively complex, but decide we are still going to treat
them as if they were automatons or slaves.
“That’s irrational. We have seen that before in the way that we
humans have treated other humans, and it always leads to bad places and
eventually people have to say, ‘Oh, we screwed up.’”
He cites the cases of native Americans such as Standing Bear, or
enslaved Africans like Dred Scott who were not recognised by the courts as
legal persons: “The men’s lawyers did not overlook the fact that their clients
weren’t white,” says Wise. “It just wasn’t relevant to their status as legal
persons.”
(Source: http://www.independent.co.uk)
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