Summary
In 2018, the NonHuman Rights Project filed a petition on behalf of Happy, an Asian elephant born in 1971, demanding recognition of Happy’s legal personhood and rights. Happy is held inside the Bronx Zoo and had lived alone since 2006 in a 1.15 acre exhibit. In 2020, after a series of legal proceedings, Justice Tuitt of the New York Supreme Court ruled that she is bound by legal precedent to deny NHRP’s habeas corpus on behalf of Happy, the elephant.
The Judge’s ruling was based on New York Supreme Court legal precedent that the common-law writ of habeas corpus does not apply to Happy, the elephant (see Nonhuman Rights Project v Lavery, 2017). The court determined in Lavery that the writ of habeas corpus is limited to human beings (see id. at 76-78), and said that declaring species other than homo sapiens are “persons” for some juridical purposes, and therefore subject to certain rights, would lead to a labyrinth of questions that common-law processes are ill-equipped to answer. As the court said in Lavery, the decisions of whether and how to integrate other species into legal constructs designed for humans is a matter “better suited to the legislative process.” (id at 80).
Involved Organizations
Related Initiatives
Suggested Citation:
Kauffman, Craig, Catherine Haas, Alex Putzer, Shrishtee Bajpai, Kelsey Leonard, Elizabeth Macpherson, Pamela Martin, Alessandro Pelizzon & Linda Sheehan. Eco Jurisprudence Monitor. V2. 2025. Distributed by the Eco Jurisprudence Monitor.https://ecojurisprudence.org/initiatives/nonhuman-rights-project-v-breheny/.
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