Is an elephant a legal person? And if so, couldn’t he have the same rights as us humans? These are the questions posed by the Happy case, which is currently being examined by New York’s highest court. Happy is the name of a female elephant, star of the Bronx zoo, born in the wild in 1971 in Thailand before being captured, transported to the United States and then held since 1977 in an enclosure. A case taken up by the animal rights association NHRP, Nonhuman Rights Project, which defends the idea that non-human animals should have the same rights as us human animals.
For the association’s lawyer, the basic needs of this elephant are flouted, since in the wild, Asian elephants travel hundreds of kilometers and live in herds, where she is locked up in her small enclosure. , alone, without congeners. The association therefore asks that Happy be recognized as a legal person, and that it benefit from the rights that go with it. If that were the case, she would not be released in New York but welcomed in an elephant sanctuary where she would benefit from a much larger space and rub shoulders with dozens of congeners.
The court has just heard the two parties, the association on the one hand, and the Bronx zoo on the other hand, which explained that Happy was respected and well cared for. The verdict will be delivered within four to six weeks, but whatever happens, this case already confronts us with our certainties: why should the concept of freedom be different depending on whether it applies to us or other animals? Why do we agree to inflict on an elephant, a monkey, a dolphin what we condemn between humans?
New York state’s top court recently heard arguments on whether an elephant should have some of the same legal rights as people, the latest development in a years-long push by an animal rights group to free Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo https:// t.co/ocL8Pa0FgL pic.twitter.com/h0nrN5zbWc
— Reuters Legal (@ReutersLegal) May 20, 2022
Of course, if Happy was recognized as a legal person (which is unlikely given the previous decisions rendered on the matter), this would open the way to hundreds of claims, for circuses, breeding, or even the keeping of animals of company. But for the association, the goal is not to blow up the structure of law, it is to recognize that an elephant is not an animal, and that it shares with us emotions such as empathy , awareness of death, memory or the ability to learn.
Incidentally, if Happy is a star, it is because she is the first to have had the experience of the mirror, recognizing herself in it and proving that pachyderms are aware of being in the world. Exactly like us.