The
Nonhuman Rights Project
January 2013
The Nonhuman Rights Project announced several years ago that it would file the first lawsuits to claim
common law personhood and fundamental legal rights for a nonhuman animal in
2013.
Twenty-five years ago, Professor David Favre and I began to grapple with the
problem of obtaining real legal rights for nonhuman animals. There were no
casebooks, few trade books or articles, almost no law school or
undergraduate classes that concerned animal law or welfare, or cases. Every
law school I begged to allow me to teach a class on animal law refused.
There was nothing written on animal rights law. We theorized from scratch.
In 1995, I published an article in Lewis and Clark Law School’s inaugural
issue of “Animal Law.” The following year, I created the Center for the
Expansion of Fundamental Rights, Inc. (CEFR), which is now the Nonhuman
Rights Project, Inc., with Jane Goodall as a board member.
In the last year of the 20th Century, my book Rattling the Cage – Toward
Legal Rights for Animals appeared. During an interview about it, I was asked
whether the time was ripe to file lawsuits that actually claimed legal
rights for a nonhuman animal. I said, “It is not.” In response, the
interviewer asked, “If not now, when?” “In about ten years,” I said.
The Nonhuman Rights Project attracted lawyers, law students, and law
professors who wrestled together with dozens of legal questions few had ever
contemplated, and struggled to identify which of the 51 legal jurisdictions
within the United States might be the best in which to file our initial
lawsuits. They drafted law review articles intended to assist judges and
other law-makers in evaluating the merits of our claims – articles that are
being readied today for publication.
Natural scientists and graduate science students gathered and archived the
latest research in nonhuman animal cognition. Sociologists and
mathematicians worked to puzzle out what judges might think about our legal
claims, while social media experts constructed our website and Facebook
page.
Hundreds of volunteers have now spent more than 30,000 hours preparing.
On March 24, the Nonhuman Rights Project will choose the jurisdictions in
which we will file those first lawsuits. By May 1, we will have selected the
initial nonhuman animal plaintiffs, begun drafting our Complaints and
supporting documents, and preparing for trials and appeals. During the last
quarter of 2013 we will enter the courthouse.
2013 is here, and we are ready!
Cartoonist Jeff Berry sent this delightful creation to Nonhuman Rights Project in early January:
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