{"id":759930,"date":"2020-03-15T08:29:34","date_gmt":"2020-03-15T12:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=759930"},"modified":"2020-03-15T08:29:34","modified_gmt":"2020-03-15T12:29:34","slug":"kevin-schneider-to-him-animals-are-legal-persons-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=759930","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Schneider: To him, animals are legal persons too"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Our legal system personfies entities such as corporations, ships, and even pieces of land. But animals in our legal world don't have any comparable rights. They\u2019re categorically things.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n

FIONA ZUBLIN:<\/strong> ‘Kevin Schneider serves as an elephant\u2019s lawyer. Her name is Happy, and in 2006 she made history as the first elephant to pass a crucial intelligence test: She can recognize herself in a mirror. Despite her name, she was dubbed \u201cthe Bronx Zoo\u2019s loneliest elephant\u201d by The New York Times because she lives in isolation there, away from the zoo\u2019s other elephants, who injured and killed Happy\u2019s companion pachyderm in 2002. Nevertheless, elephants are social creatures, and Schneider \u2014 along with the organization where he serves as executive director, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) \u2014 wants her moved to a sanctuary. The case was dismissed by the Bronx Supreme Court on Feb. 20, with the judge saying Happy is \u201cnot a person\u201d but admitting that the NhRP\u2019s arguments were persuasive and that she \u201cshould be treated with respect and dignity, and \u2026 may be entitled to liberty.\u201d The NhRP says it will appeal the case but called the judge\u2019s words \u201cpowerful.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Schneider, 33, began as a volunteer with the organization. After five years, he became its executive director, running the show under the auspices of founder and president Steven Wise… When he first started telling people about his work with NhRP, Schneider says, the response was either blank stares or mocking. Even now people get confused by the concept of the personhood of animals. He\u2019s not arguing that animals are conceptually people, but that they can be personified legally, that they have the capacity for rights… \u201cNo animals in our legal world have any rights whatsoever. They\u2019re categorically things,\u201d Schneider says. \u201cIf a judge isn\u2019t willing to question that for a chimpanzee or an elephant, what hope do we have for a cow, a pig, a chicken?”…<\/em><\/p>\n

When Wise began working on the project in earnest in 1985 \u2014 before Schneider was born \u2014 Wise says he predicted it would take about 30 years before the first cases came up. His prediction was on the money. But Wise\u2019s initial idea hasn\u2019t wavered: When it comes to corporations, ships, even pieces of land, he says, \u201cThe only way that any entity is ever protected is if they\u2019re a person”… Current laws about animals largely focus on animal welfare \u2014 they don\u2019t question whether an animal is a thing, just how you can ethically treat that thing. So the NhRP\u2019s mission is radical in that sense, and it focuses on elephants and chimpanzees because they\u2019re animals that have been scientifically proven to have the capacity for certain types of thinking: memory, the ability to plan or individual desires…<\/em><\/p>\n

The gradual changes in values that the NhRP hopes to kick-start could potentially lead to a sea change for all animals, not just the clever ones. And those changes might not get rolling in the United States: The organization is working on getting animals in Argentina and Colombia their rights, little by little. Once those precedents are created, Schneider says, they can take on new life and have influence beyond borders. Another route is legislative: If animal rights organizations like the NhRP can influence legislators to create rights for animals, the fight in the courts will be that much easier’.<\/em> SOURCE…<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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