ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Steven Wise - Animal rights lawyer
By challenging long-held legal notions of “personhood”, Steven Wise seeks to grant cognitively advanced animals access to a full spectrum of fundamental rights.

Why you should listen

Using a long-term litigation campaign based on existing habeas corpus law, Steven Wise and the Nonhuman Rights Project are redefining the playing field for animal rights law. While the high-profile New York lawsuits Wise has initiated on behalf of captive chimpanzees have yet to bear fruit, they’re only the first stage of a strategy that is changing the conversation about animal rights.

Wise’s work with the Nonhuman Rights Project is the subject of Unlocking the Cage, a forthcoming film by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker.

More profile about the speaker
Steven Wise | Speaker | TED.com
TED2015

Steven Wise: Chimps have feelings and thoughts. They should also have rights

Filmed:
1,115,996 views

Chimpanzees are people too, you know. Ok, not exactly. But lawyer Steven Wise has spent the last 30 years working to change these animals' status from "things" to "persons." It's not a matter of legal semantics; as he describes in this fascinating talk, recognizing that animals like chimps have extraordinary cognitive capabilities and rethinking the way we treat them -- legally -- is no less than a moral duty.
- Animal rights lawyer
By challenging long-held legal notions of “personhood”, Steven Wise seeks to grant cognitively advanced animals access to a full spectrum of fundamental rights. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
I'd like to have you look at this pencil.
0
949
2601
00:15
It's a thing. It's a legal thing.
1
3550
2857
00:18
And so are books you might have
or the cars you own.
2
6407
2972
00:22
They're all legal things.
3
10319
1939
00:24
The great apes that you'll see behind me,
4
12258
3623
00:27
they too are legal things.
5
15881
3668
00:31
Now, I can do that to a legal thing.
6
19549
4273
00:35
I can do whatever I want
to my book or my car.
7
23822
2809
00:38
These great apes, you'll see.
8
26631
2902
00:41
The photographs are taken by a man
named James Mollison
9
29533
3887
00:45
who wrote a book called
"James & Other Apes."
10
33420
3044
00:48
And he tells in his book
how every single one them,
11
36464
2763
00:51
almost every one of them, is an orphan
12
39227
2298
00:53
who saw his mother and father
die before his eyes.
13
41525
3615
00:58
They're legal things.
14
46110
1638
00:59
So for centuries, there's been
a great legal wall
15
47748
2693
01:02
that separates legal things
from legal persons.
16
50441
3344
01:05
On one hand, legal things
are invisible to judges.
17
53785
3785
01:09
They don't count in law.
18
57570
1950
01:11
They don't have any legal rights.
19
59520
1695
01:13
They don't have
the capacity for legal rights.
20
61215
2484
01:15
They are the slaves.
21
63699
2137
01:17
On the other side of that legal wall
are the legal persons.
22
65836
2824
01:20
Legal persons are very visible to judges.
23
68660
2437
01:23
They count in law.
24
71607
1705
01:25
They may have many rights.
25
73312
1927
01:27
They have the capacity
for an infinite number of rights.
26
75239
2903
01:30
And they're the masters.
27
78142
2368
01:33
Right now, all nonhuman animals
are legal things.
28
81300
4479
01:37
All human beings are legal persons.
29
85779
2881
01:40
But being human and being a legal person
30
88660
2809
01:43
has never been, and is not today,
synonymous with a legal person.
31
91469
5643
01:49
Humans and legal persons
are not synonymous.
32
97112
3366
01:52
On the one side,
33
100478
2880
01:55
there have been many human beings
over the centuries
34
103358
4133
01:59
who have been legal things.
35
107491
1973
02:01
Slaves were legal things.
36
109464
1533
02:02
Women, children,
were sometimes legal things.
37
110997
3722
02:07
Indeed, a great deal of civil rights
struggle over the last centuries
38
115499
3647
02:11
has been to punch a hole
through that wall and begin to feed
39
119146
4513
02:15
these human things through the wall
and have them become legal persons.
40
123659
5054
02:20
But alas, that hole has closed up.
41
128713
3469
02:24
Now, on the other side are legal persons,
42
132772
2047
02:26
but they've never only been
limited to human beings.
43
134819
4133
02:30
There are, for example, there are many
legal persons who are not even alive.
44
138952
3988
02:34
In the United States,
45
142940
1607
02:36
we're aware of the fact
that corporations are legal persons.
46
144547
3993
02:40
In pre-independence India,
47
148540
1975
02:42
a court held that a Hindu idol
was a legal person,
48
150515
2624
02:45
that a mosque was a legal person.
49
153139
2061
02:47
In 2000, the Indian Supreme Court
50
155200
2430
02:49
held that the holy books
of the Sikh religion was a legal person,
51
157630
3543
02:53
and in 2012, just recently,
52
161173
2299
02:55
there was a treaty between
the indigenous peoples of New Zealand
53
163472
3761
02:59
and the crown, in which it was agreed
that a river was a legal person
54
167233
3251
03:02
who owned its own riverbed.
55
170484
3041
03:05
Now, I read Peter Singer's book in 1980,
56
173525
3251
03:08
when I had a full head
of lush, brown hair,
57
176776
3724
03:12
and indeed I was moved by it,
58
180500
2588
03:15
because I had become a lawyer because
I wanted to speak for the voiceless,
59
183088
3528
03:18
defend the defenseless,
60
186616
1235
03:19
and I'd never realized how voiceless
and defenseless the trillions,
61
187851
4412
03:24
billions of nonhuman animals are.
62
192263
3506
03:27
And I began to work
as an animal protection lawyer.
63
195769
3019
03:30
And by 1985, I realized that I was trying
to accomplish something
64
198788
4876
03:35
that was literally impossible,
65
203664
1927
03:37
the reason being that all of my clients,
66
205591
2624
03:40
all the animals whose interests
I was trying to defend,
67
208215
3482
03:43
were legal things; they were invisible.
68
211697
2485
03:46
It was not going to work, so I decided
69
214182
1920
03:48
that the only thing that was going to work
was they had, at least some of them,
70
216102
3964
03:52
had to also be moved through a hole
that we could open up again in that wall
71
220066
3798
03:55
and begin feeding the appropriate
nonhuman animals through that hole
72
223864
3576
03:59
onto the other side
of being legal persons.
73
227440
3546
04:02
Now, at that time, there was
very little known about or spoken about
74
230986
5440
04:08
truly animal rights,
75
236426
2368
04:10
about the idea of having legal personhood
or legal rights for a nonhuman animal,
76
238794
4441
04:15
and I knew it was going
to take a long time.
77
243235
2770
04:18
And so, in 1985, I figured that it
would take about 30 years
78
246005
3400
04:21
before we'd be able to even begin
a strategic litigation,
79
249405
3529
04:24
long-term campaign, in order to be able
to punch another hole through that wall.
80
252934
5782
04:30
It turned out that I was pessimistic,
that it only took 28.
81
258716
5840
04:38
So what we had to do in order
to begin was not only
82
266801
6439
04:45
to write law review articles
and teach classes, write books,
83
273240
4682
04:49
but we had to then begin
to get down to the nuts and bolts
84
277922
2968
04:52
of how you litigate that kind of case.
85
280890
1985
04:54
So one of the first things we needed to do
was figure out what a cause of action was,
86
282875
4033
04:58
a legal cause of action.
87
286908
1459
05:00
And a legal cause of action
is a vehicle that lawyers use
88
288367
2897
05:03
to put their arguments in front of courts.
89
291264
5576
05:08
It turns out there's
a very interesting case
90
296840
2904
05:11
that had occurred almost 250 years ago
in London called Somerset vs. Stewart,
91
299744
4604
05:16
whereby a black slave
had used the legal system
92
304348
3096
05:19
and had moved from a legal thing
to a legal person.
93
307444
2879
05:22
I was so interested in it that I
eventually wrote an entire book about it.
94
310323
4063
05:26
James Somerset was an eight-year-old boy
when he was kidnapped from West Africa.
95
314386
5387
05:31
He survived the Middle Passage,
96
319773
2947
05:34
and he was sold to a Scottish businessman
named Charles Stewart in Virginia.
97
322720
5174
05:39
Now, 20 years later, Stewart
brought James Somerset to London,
98
327894
4208
05:44
and after he got there, James decided
he was going to escape.
99
332102
3878
05:47
And so one of the first things he did
was to get himself baptized,
100
335980
3640
05:51
because he wanted to get
a set of godparents,
101
339620
2281
05:53
because to an 18th-century slave,
102
341901
1811
05:55
they knew that one of the major
responsibilities of godfathers
103
343712
3158
05:58
was to help you escape.
104
346870
2112
06:00
And so in the fall of 1771,
105
348982
4016
06:04
James Somerset had a confrontation
with Charles Stewart.
106
352998
2643
06:07
We don't know exactly what happened,
but then James dropped out of sight.
107
355641
4672
06:12
An enraged Charles Stewart
then hired slave catchers
108
360313
2996
06:15
to canvass the city of London,
109
363309
2241
06:17
find him, bring him
not back to Charles Stewart,
110
365550
2600
06:20
but to a ship, the Ann and Mary,
that was floating in London Harbour,
111
368150
6023
06:26
and he was chained to the deck,
112
374173
1620
06:27
and the ship was to set sail for Jamaica
113
375793
2004
06:29
where James was to be sold
in the slave markets
114
377797
3019
06:32
and be doomed to the three to five
years of life that a slave had
115
380816
3483
06:36
harvesting sugar cane in Jamaica.
116
384299
2851
06:39
Well now James' godparents
swung into action.
117
387150
3209
06:42
They approached the most powerful judge,
118
390359
2507
06:44
Lord Mansfield, who was chief judge
of the court of King's Bench,
119
392866
3646
06:48
and they demanded that he issue
a common law writ of habeus corpus
120
396512
3645
06:52
on behalf of James Somerset.
121
400157
1834
06:53
Now, the common law is the kind of law
that English-speaking judges can make
122
401991
3971
06:57
when they're not cabined in
by statutes or constitutions,
123
405962
4137
07:02
and a writ of habeus corpus
is called the Great Writ,
124
410099
2596
07:04
capital G, capital W,
125
412695
2067
07:06
and it's meant to protect any of us
who are detained against our will.
126
414762
4528
07:11
A writ of habeus corpus is issued.
127
419290
1973
07:13
The detainer is required
to bring the detainee in
128
421263
2438
07:15
and give a legally sufficient reason
for depriving him of his bodily liberty.
129
423701
5875
07:21
Well, Lord Mansfield had to make
a decision right off the bat,
130
429576
4994
07:26
because if James Somerset
was a legal thing,
131
434570
2784
07:29
he was not eligible
for a writ of habeus corpus,
132
437354
3065
07:32
only if he could be a legal person.
133
440419
2020
07:34
So Lord Mansfield decided
that he would assume,
134
442439
3018
07:37
without deciding, that James Somerset
was indeed a legal person,
135
445457
4103
07:41
and he issued the writ of habeus corpus,
and James's body was brought in
136
449560
3411
07:44
by the captain of the ship.
137
452971
1511
07:46
There were a series of hearings
over the next six months.
138
454482
2701
07:49
On June 22, 1772, Lord Mansfield
said that slavery was so odious,
139
457183
5828
07:55
and he used the word "odious,"
140
463011
1834
07:56
that the common law would not support it,
and he ordered James free.
141
464845
3878
08:00
At that moment, James Somerset
underwent a legal transubstantiation.
142
468723
3590
08:04
The free man who walked
out of the courtroom
143
472883
2060
08:06
looked exactly like the slave
who had walked in,
144
474943
2248
08:09
but as far as the law was concerned,
they had nothing whatsoever in common.
145
477191
5139
08:14
The next thing we did is that
the Nonhuman Rights Project,
146
482790
2950
08:17
which I founded, then began to look at
what kind of values and principles
147
485740
3510
08:21
do we want to put before the judges?
148
489250
2878
08:24
What values and principles
did they imbibe with their mother's milk,
149
492128
3879
08:28
were they taught in law school,
do they use every day,
150
496007
3083
08:31
do they believe with all their hearts --
and we chose liberty and equality.
151
499090
3689
08:34
Now, liberty right is the kind of right
to which you're entitled
152
502779
3032
08:37
because of how you're put together,
153
505811
2341
08:40
and a fundamental liberty right
protects a fundamental interest.
154
508152
5337
08:45
And the supreme interest in the common law
155
513489
3235
08:48
are the rights to autonomy
and self-determination.
156
516724
4041
08:54
So they are so powerful that
in a common law country,
157
522015
3780
08:57
if you go to a hospital and you refuse
life-saving medical treatment,
158
525795
4598
09:02
a judge will not order it forced upon you,
159
530393
2247
09:04
because they will respect
your self-determination and your autonomy.
160
532640
4811
09:09
Now, an equality right is the kind
of right to which you're entitled
161
537451
3263
09:12
because you resemble someone else
in a relevant way,
162
540714
2896
09:15
and there's the rub, relevant way.
163
543610
1991
09:17
So if you are that, then because
they have the right, you're like them,
164
545601
3738
09:21
you're entitled to the right.
165
549339
2345
09:23
Now, courts and legislatures
draw lines all the time.
166
551684
2622
09:26
Some are included, some are excluded.
167
554846
2272
09:29
But you have to,
at the bare minimum you must --
168
557118
6142
09:35
that line has to be a reasonable means
to a legitimate end.
169
563260
4435
09:39
The Nonhuman Rights Project
argues that drawing a line
170
567695
2740
09:42
in order to enslave an autonomous
and self-determining being
171
570435
3307
09:45
like you're seeing behind me,
172
573742
1788
09:47
that that's a violation of equality.
173
575530
3030
09:51
We then searched through 80 jurisdictions,
174
579270
2550
09:53
it took us seven years,
to find the jurisdiction
175
581820
2245
09:56
where we wanted to begin
filing our first suit.
176
584065
2206
09:58
We chose the state of New York.
177
586271
1499
09:59
Then we decided upon
who our plaintiffs are going to be.
178
587770
2622
10:02
We decided upon chimpanzees,
179
590392
1866
10:04
not just because Jane Goodall
was on our board of directors,
180
592258
2851
10:07
but because they, Jane and others,
181
595109
3753
10:10
have studied chimpanzees
intensively for decades.
182
598862
2720
10:13
We know the extraordinary
cognitive capabilities that they have,
183
601582
3576
10:17
and they also resemble the kind
that human beings have.
184
605158
3134
10:20
And so we chose chimpanzees,
and we began to then canvass the world
185
608292
5132
10:25
to find the experts
in chimpanzee cognition.
186
613424
2832
10:28
We found them in Japan, Sweden, Germany,
Scotland, England and the United States,
187
616256
4505
10:32
and amongst them, they wrote
100 pages of affidavits
188
620761
2763
10:35
in which they set out more than 40 ways
189
623524
2796
10:38
in which their complex
cognitive capability,
190
626320
2800
10:41
either individually or together,
191
629120
2020
10:43
all added up to autonomy
and self-determination.
192
631140
3119
10:47
Now, these included, for example,
that they were conscious.
193
635429
3507
10:50
But they're also conscious
that they're conscious.
194
638936
2347
10:53
They know they have a mind.
They know that others have minds.
195
641283
2856
10:56
They know they're individuals,
and that they can live.
196
644139
2543
10:58
They understand that they lived yesterday
and they will live tomorrow.
197
646682
3293
11:01
They engage in mental time travel.
They remember what happened yesterday.
198
649975
3444
11:05
They can anticipate tomorrow,
199
653419
1451
11:06
which is why it's so terrible to imprison
a chimpanzee, especially alone.
200
654870
4717
11:11
It's the thing that we do
to our worst criminals,
201
659587
2597
11:14
and we do that to chimpanzees
without even thinking about it.
202
662184
4771
11:19
They have some kind of moral capacity.
203
667715
2711
11:22
When they play economic games
with human beings,
204
670426
2926
11:25
they'll spontaneously make fair offers,
even when they're not required to do so.
205
673352
4040
11:29
They are numerate.
They understand numbers.
206
677392
2033
11:31
They can do some simple math.
207
679425
1380
11:32
They can engage in language --
or to stay out of the language wars,
208
680805
4064
11:36
they're involved in intentional
and referential communication
209
684869
3365
11:40
in which they pay attention
to the attitudes of those
210
688234
2487
11:42
with whom they are speaking.
211
690721
1531
11:44
They have culture.
212
692252
1458
11:45
They have a material culture,
a social culture.
213
693900
2601
11:48
They have a symbolic culture.
214
696501
2415
11:50
Scientists in the Taï Forests
in the Ivory Coast
215
698916
3901
11:54
found chimpanzees who were using
these rocks to smash open
216
702817
3529
11:58
the incredibly hard hulls of nuts.
217
706346
2786
12:01
It takes a long time
to learn how to do that,
218
709132
2299
12:03
and they excavated the area
and they found
219
711431
2113
12:05
that this material culture,
this way of doing it,
220
713544
2833
12:08
these rocks, had passed down
for at least 4,300 years
221
716377
3343
12:11
through 225 chimpanzee generations.
222
719720
4992
12:16
So now we needed to find our chimpanzee.
223
724712
2392
12:19
Our chimpanzee,
224
727104
3180
12:22
first we found two of them
in the state of New York.
225
730284
2903
12:25
Both of them would die before
we could even get our suits filed.
226
733187
3204
12:28
Then we found Tommy.
227
736391
1881
12:30
Tommy is a chimpanzee.
You see him behind me.
228
738272
3112
12:33
Tommy was a chimpanzee.
We found him in that cage.
229
741384
2507
12:35
We found him in a small room
that was filled with cages
230
743891
3460
12:39
in a larger warehouse structure on a used
trailer lot in central New York.
231
747351
5186
12:44
We found Kiko, who is partially deaf.
232
752537
2174
12:46
Kiko was in the back of a cement
storefront in western Massachusetts.
233
754711
5642
12:52
And we found Hercules and Leo.
234
760353
1897
12:54
They're two young male chimpanzees
235
762250
1703
12:55
who are being used for biomedical,
anatomical research at Stony Brook.
236
763953
3413
12:59
We found them.
237
767366
1305
13:00
And so on the last week of December 2013,
238
768671
2712
13:03
the Nonhuman Rights Project filed three
suits all across the state of New York
239
771383
3940
13:07
using the same common law
writ of habeus corpus argument
240
775323
3478
13:10
that had been used with James Somerset,
241
778801
2728
13:13
and we demanded that the judges issue
these common law writs of habeus corpus.
242
781529
5087
13:18
We wanted the chimpanzees out,
243
786616
2111
13:20
and we wanted them brought
to Save the Chimps,
244
788727
2786
13:23
a tremendous chimpanzee
sanctuary in South Florida
245
791513
3948
13:27
which involves an artificial lake
with 12 or 13 islands --
246
795461
5087
13:32
there are two or three acres
where two dozen chimpanzees live
247
800548
2863
13:35
on each of them.
248
803411
1160
13:36
And these chimpanzees would then live
the life of a chimpanzee,
249
804571
2950
13:39
with other chimpanzees in an environment
that was as close to Africa as possible.
250
807521
4402
13:43
Now, all these cases are still going on.
251
811923
3947
13:48
We have not yet run into
our Lord Mansfield.
252
816820
3082
13:52
We shall. We shall.
253
820622
1608
13:54
This is a long-term strategic
litigation campaign. We shall.
254
822230
3880
13:58
And to quote Winston Churchill,
255
826110
2115
14:00
the way we view our cases
is that they're not the end,
256
828225
4168
14:04
they're not even the beginning of the end,
257
832393
2043
14:06
but they are perhaps
the end of the beginning.
258
834436
3514
14:10
Thank you.
259
838580
1917
14:12
(Applause)
260
840497
4000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Steven Wise - Animal rights lawyer
By challenging long-held legal notions of “personhood”, Steven Wise seeks to grant cognitively advanced animals access to a full spectrum of fundamental rights.

Why you should listen

Using a long-term litigation campaign based on existing habeas corpus law, Steven Wise and the Nonhuman Rights Project are redefining the playing field for animal rights law. While the high-profile New York lawsuits Wise has initiated on behalf of captive chimpanzees have yet to bear fruit, they’re only the first stage of a strategy that is changing the conversation about animal rights.

Wise’s work with the Nonhuman Rights Project is the subject of Unlocking the Cage, a forthcoming film by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker.

More profile about the speaker
Steven Wise | Speaker | TED.com