Ecuador Court Case: rights of Estrellita the primate

Summary

In January 2022, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador ruled that the constitutional rights of nature applies to individual animals, and a pet monkey’s death constituted a rights of nature violation. The court’s ruling was the result of a habeas corpus action filed by a human on behalf of Estrellita, a woolly monkey. The court also indicated that habeas corpus could be an appropriate action for animals.

Background:
In 2019, the Ministry of the Environment seized a woolly monkey named Estrellita from a family in Ambato who had taken the monkey from the wild as a baby and raised her as a pet for 18 years. After years with the family, the monkey had never grown up in a wild environment. The monkey was reported to the authorities, who seized the animal and transferred her to a zoo, on the grounds that possessing a “wild animal” is prohibited by Ecuador law. Estrellita died within a month of being relocated to the zoo. Ana Beatriz Burbano Proaño, who identified as Estrellita’s mom, filed a habeas corpus action on behalf of Estrellita to get the monkey returned to her custody (she didn’t know the monkey had died in the zoo). The family lost in the first and second instances because the courts said that habeas corpus only applies to humans, and that there is no case because Estrellita died.

Jurisprudential Framing:
The claims on behalf of the rights of Estrellita, 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 argued that it would be arbitrary to draw a line at a number of animals needed.

The Constitutional Court selected the case to establish binding jurisprudence on how Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature applies to animals. Up to now, rights of nature had only been applied to species of animals (e.g., sharks, endangered species), but this case addresses whether or not (and how) the constitutional rights of nature provisions would apply to an individual animal. The Constitutional Court considered whether Nature’s rights were violated when Estrellita was removed from her natural habitat, kept in an urban home, and seized by authorities and transferred to the zoo.

Ruling:
In 2022, the Constitutional Court ruled in a seven to two vote that Ecuador’s constitutional Rights of Nature provisions do apply to individual animals, stating that “animals should not be protected only from an ecosystemic perspective or with a view to the needs of human beings, but mainly from a perspective that focuses on their individuality and intrinsic value.” Consequently the court found that Estrellita’s rights – specifically to life and to integrity – had been violated in each of these instances, and therefore the rights of nature were also violated. While the court found the habeas corpus “inadmissible because it revolves around the recovery of the corpse of a wild animal,” by admitting it for constitutional review, they affirmed that individual wild animals are subjects of rights under the constitutional rights of nature provision. Furthermore, the Court ordered the Ombudsman and Congress to prepare and approve a bill on the rights of animals, based on the rights and principles developed in the ruling.

The Court also outlined specific rights, including:
Right not to be hunted, fished, captured, collected, extracted, kept, detained, trafficked, traded, or exchanged. Right to the free development of their animal behavior, which includes guaranteeing sufficient space and social conditions to ensure the right to behave according to their instinct, the innate behaviors of their species. (paragraph 12) Right to live in harmony and good living; Right to health; Right to a habitat; Right to food according to the species’ nutritional requirements. (paragraph 119) Right to demand their rights from the competent authorities. (paragraph 121) Right to live in a violence-free environment, free from disproportionate cruelty, fear, and distress, that is suitable for each species, with adequate shelter and resting conditions; Right to freedom of movement. (paragraph 137)

Involved Organizations