Sandra the ‘nonhuman person’ is sadly not the face of a welfare revolution
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Version 0 of 1. Sandra, a shy 29-year-old who was born in Germany, can be released from a life behind bars in Buenos Aires after a court recognised she had been unlawfully deprived of her freedom. Such a case would hardly raise eyebrows around the world were it not for the fact that Sandra is an orangutan. At first glance, the implications of recognising that Sandra is not an object but a “nonhuman person” who deserves basic rights such as life, liberty and freedom from torture sound revolutionary. If the Argentinian legal system says that one orangutan deserves its freedom, then how can one species of great ape (us) confine others (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos) to zoos, circuses or scientific laboratories in any country? If this ruling applies to great apes, then why not orcas or whales or other highly intelligent mammals? Furthermore, doesn’t every sentient creature deserve similar basic rights across the world? And if so, can we legally deprive any animal of its right to life so we can eat it? For two centuries animal welfare groups have campaigned for animals to be treated better in captivity or freed from the worst enslavement. There have been plenty of achievements: bear baiting was outlawed in Britain in 1835; a more recent success has been the fact that there are no captive dolphins or whales in Britain. Of course, many such victories are confined to individual nations (performing orcas are still big business) and horrendous animal exploitation continues on an industrial scale. Animal rights is a misnomer, says the more radical nonhuman rights movement, because animals have no legal rights. Therefore it is using the court system to establish basic legal rights for certain species. The Argentinian court ruling may not be as far-reaching as it first appears, however. The case was based on the argument that “shy” Sandra was particularly traumatised by being on display to people and is therefore simply one individual case. It is also a civil law case, according to the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), a New York-based organisation which is seeking basic rights for animals in more far-reaching common law. The NhRP is trying to liberate individual chimpanzees in the United States by arguing that the writ of habeas corpus can apply to a nonhuman, and therefore a chimpanzee’s owners would have to justify the animal’s imprisonment. So far, its attempts to obtain rights for four captive chimpanzees have foundered. In the latest verdict over the fate of Tommy, a privately owned chimpanzee, the US judge said such animals couldn’t contribute to society or suffer the legal consequences of their actions – couldn’t, essentially, participate in our society as humans do – and therefore couldn’t share our basic rights. The nonhuman rights movement often likens intelligent mammals to similarly intelligent young children who possess basic rights but are not able to fully participate in society. But the judge in Tommy’s case argued: “To be sure, some humans are less able to bear legal duties or responsibilities than others. These differences do not alter our analysis, as it is undeniable that, collectively, human beings possess the unique ability to bear legal responsibility.” Through the growing global reach of groups such as the NhRP (which hopes to start legal action in Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, England, Australia and Argentina in the near future) and the Great Apes Project, arguments over nonhuman rights are likely to intensify in the future. Hopefully they will play a crucial role in banning cruel forms of captivity (even though Peta’s legal challenge to the keeping of orcas in captivity by SeaWorld failed in 2012). But it is hard to escape the conclusion that the legal system is a human invention which serves to uphold existing power relationships – and the majority of us are unwilling to relinquish our dominion over other species. One problem with such individualistic legal challenges is that we cannot grant captive individuals the rights they may deserve. Sandra can never be returned to the Sumatran rainforest: she was born in captivity, and to release her into the wild would condemn her to death, so at best she will live out her days in a sanctuary where the bars are a bit less obvious than in a conventional zoo. That represents an improvement in her welfare, not a rights revolution. I admire the nonhuman rights movement’s challenge to our assumptions, but I wonder if it would be more productive for animal lovers to focus their energies on changing the laws governing welfare standards for captive animals. And, ultimately, we will protect more nonhuman liberties through conservation; by safeguarding the places where animals live beyond our jurisdiction, wild and free. |