‘I AM SOMEBODY’: Constitutional Court of Ecuador recognizes animal rights in landmark ruling
While rights of nature were enshrined in the constitution, it was not clear prior to this decision whether individual animals could benefit from the rights of nature and be considered rights holders as a part of nature. The Court has stated that animals are subject of rights protected by rights of nature.
PR NEWSWIRE: For the first time, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador has recognized the legal rights of nonhuman animals. The ruling not only elevates the legal status of nonhuman animals under Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature but also requires that new legislation be drafted to protect the rights of animals. Ecuador was the first country to include a rights of nature provision in its national Constitution.
When the case came before Ecuador’s Constitutional Court, the judges elected to consider several issues, including: the scope of the country’s rights of nature provision; whether animals qualify as the subject of rights; and whether Estrellita’s rights were violated. The Court found by a vote of seven to two that the scope of the rights of nature includes animals and thus animals are the subject of rights. The Court also indicated that habeas corpus could be an appropriate action for animals and that they may possess rights that derive from other sources in addition to the Constitution.
“This verdict raises animal rights to the level of the constitution, the highest law of Ecuador,” said leading Ecuadorian environmental lawyer Hugo Echeverría, who brought the case to the attention of NhRP. “While rights of nature were enshrined in the constitution, it was not clear prior to this decision whether individual animals could benefit from the rights of nature and be considered rights holders as a part of nature. The Court has stated that animals are subject of rights protected by rights of nature”…
The court’s detailed ruling directly refers to the joint amicus curiae supporting Estrellita’s case submitted by Professor Kristen Stilt and Research Fellow Macarena Montes of the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School (ALPP) and attorneys Steven M. Wise and Kevin Schneider of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP)….
Their joint amicus brief asserted that the rights of nature should protect nonhuman animals, including individual animals such as Estrellita. It argued that even if the Court was mainly concerned with protection at the species level, species are made up of individual animals, and what happens to an individual animal can have an important impact on the species. It explained that it would be arbitrary to draw a line at a number of animals needed to count—2, 3, 4, 10? One should be enough. The Court accepted the brief’s arguments that challenged the traditional view that only ecosystems and species are protected by the rights of nature, not individuals…
Responding to the decision, Professor Kristen Stilt, Faculty Director of the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School, said: “The concept of the rights of nature is not well known in the U.S., but in other parts of the world, including South America, it is proving to be an important legal tool to protect nature, including animals… Steven M. Wise, President of the Nonhuman Rights Project, added: “This decision is a huge step forward in the global struggle for nonhuman rights. We hope and expect fundamental legal change for nonhuman animals in the United States isn’t far behind”. SOURCE…
STATEMENT FROM THE NON-HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT (NHRP):
In late 2021, The Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School (ALPP) and the Nonhuman Rights Project jointly filed an amicus curiae brief with the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, urging it to recognize that nonhuman animals can have legal rights after it decided to take up the issue of nonhuman animals’ legal status in response to a case involving a woolly monkey. In a landmark ruling, the Court has done so. The ruling not only elevates the legal status of animals under Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature but also requires that new legislation be drafted to protect the rights of animals…
The Court found by a vote of seven to two that the scope of the rights of nature includes animals and thus animals are the subject of rights. The Court also indicated that habeas corpus could be an appropriate action for animals and that they may possess rights that derive from other sources in addition to the Constitution. The Court’s detailed ruling directly refers to the brief submitted by the ALPP and the NhRP. Learn more about the case and ruling in this detailed blog post, which includes links to the ruling in Spanish and English.
As reported on by The New Statesman (“Could Happy the elephant follow an Ecuadorian monkey into legal personhood?”), this ruling is a huge step forward in the global struggle for nonhuman rights, and we hope and expect fundamental legal change for animals in the United States isn’t far behind. In February, we sent a letter to the New York Court of Appeals to inform them of the ruling and encourage them to take it into consideration in our elephant client Happy’s case. Later this year, as explored in recent stories in The New Yorker and The Atlantic, the New York Court of Appeals will become the highest English-speaking court to hear arguments in support of nonhuman rights.
In this time of catastrophic climate crisis and the sixth mass extinction of species, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador’s judgment constitutes one of the most important legal advances in the field of nonhuman rights and environmental law in recent years. Until this ruling, legal practitioners, scholars, and advocates have centered the protection of nature on ecosystems and species, not individuals. Moreover, much of the work on the rights of nature did not consider animals as rights-holders. The Court’s groundbreaking ruling advances the constitutional protection of animals—ranging from the level of species to the individual animal—with their own inherent value and needs.
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