Nonhuman Rights Project
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| Founded | 2007 (as a project of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights), officially renamed NhRP 2012 |
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| Founder | Steven Wise |
| Type | 501(c)(3) |
| Focus | Animal rights |
| Location | |
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Area served
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United States |
| Method | Sustained strategic litigation |
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Key people
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Steven M. Wise, Jane Goodall, Natalie Prosin, Elizabeth Stein, Monica Miller, Michael Mountain |
| Website | www |
The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is an American animal rights nonprofit organization seeking to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman animals from that of property to that of persons, with a goal of securing rights to bodily liberty (the right not to be imprisoned) and bodily integrity (the right not to be experimented on). The NhRP works largely through state-by-state litigation in what it determines to be the most appropriate common law jurisdictions and bases its arguments on existing scientific evidence concerning self-awareness and autonomy in nonhuman animals. Its sustained strategic litigation campaign has been developed primarily by a team of attorneys, legal experts, and volunteer law students who have conducted extensive research into relevant legal precedents. The NhRP filed its first lawsuits in December 2013 on behalf of four chimpanzees held in captivity in New York State. In late 2014, NhRP President Steven Wise and Executive Director Natalie Prosin announced in the Global Journal of Animal Law that the Nonhuman Rights Project was expanding its work into other countries, beginning in Switzerland, Argentina, England, Spain, Portugal, and Australia.
The Nonhuman Rights Project is currently one of Animal Charity Evaluators' Standout Charities.
Founded by attorney Steven M. Wise, the Nonhuman Rights Project began in 2007 as a project of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights. In 2012, the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights officially changed its name to the Nonhuman Rights Project.
According to the NhRP's website, the mission of the Nonhuman Rights Project is, through education and litigation, to change the common law status of at least some nonhuman animals from mere “things,” which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to “persons,” who possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty and those other legal rights to which evolving standards of morality, scientific discovery, and human experience entitle them. To advance this mission, the NhRP's specific goals are:
1. To persuade a United States state high court to declare that a specific nonhuman animal is a legal person who possesses the capacity for a specific legal right.
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Wikipedia