A Landmark Ruling for Animal Rights in Ecuador

In late 2021, the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard Law School (ALPP) and the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), an initiative advocating that nonhuman beings should also have fundamental legal rights, jointly filed anamicus curiaebrief with the Constitutional Court of Ecuador in response to a case involving a woolly monkey, urging the Court to recognize that nonhuman animals can have legal rights after it decided to take up the issue of animals' legal status. In a landmark ruling, the Court has done so.

The ruling not only elevates the legal status of animals under Ecuador's constitutionally guaranteed rights of nature but also requires that new legislation be drafted to protect the rights of animals.

NhRP President Steven M. Wise took part in a discussion of this exciting news at a panel held on 24 March as part ofHarvard Law School's Animal Law Week 2022. The panel was virtual and open to the public. Also on the panel were leading Ecuadorian environmental lawyerHugo Echeverría, who brought the case to the attention of the NhRP, and Professor Kristen Stilt and Research Fellow Macarena Montes of the ALPP.

In the NhRP's words: "As reported on byThe New Statesman, this ruling is a huge step forward in the global struggle for nonhuman rights, and we hope and expect fundamental legal change for animals in the United States isn't far behind. In February, we sent a letter to the New York Court of Appeals to inform them of the ruling and encourage them to take it into consideration in our elephant clientHappy's case.As explored in recent stories in The AtlanticandThe New Yorker, later this year the New York Court of Appeals will become the highest English-speaking court to hear arguments in support of nonhuman rights."

Background

The Court's ruling was the result of ahabeas corpusaction filed by Ana Beatriz Burbano Proaño on behalf of Estrellita, a woolly monkey who had lived in her home for 18 years. Environmental authorities had forcibly seized Estrellita on the grounds that possessing a "wild animal" is prohibited by Ecuadorian law. Estrellita died within a month of being relocated to a zoo.

Ecuador was the first country to include a rights of nature provision in its national Constitution. When the case came before Ecuador's Constitutional Court, the judges elected to consider several issues, including the scope of the country's rights of nature provision, whether animals qualify as the subject of rights, and whether Estrellita's rights were violated.

About the Ruling and theAmicus CuriaeBrief

The Court found by a vote of seven to two that the scope of the rights of nature includes animals and thus animals are the subject of rights. The Court also indicated thathabeas corpuscould be an appropriate action for animals and that they may possess rights that derive from other sources in addition to the Constitution.

The Court's detailed ruling directly refers to the jointamicus curiaesupporting Estrellita's case, submitted by Professor Kristen Stilt and Research Fellow Macarena Montes of the ALPP and Steven M. Wise and Kevin Schneider of the NhRP.Theamicus curiaewas prepared with the assistance of Marianné Núñez Núñez and Raquel Cerezo Martínez, both students who interned with the NhRP through the Autonomous University of Barcelona's Master's Program in Animal Law and Society. The decision is available in both theoriginal Spanishand anEnglish translationprepared by the NhRP.

The jointamicusbriefby the ALPP and NhRP asserted that the rights of nature should protect animals, including individual animals such as Estrellita. Theamicusbrief argued that even if the Court was mainly concerned with protection at the species level, species are made up ofindividualanimals, and what happens to an individual animal can have an important impact on the species.The amicusbrief explained that it would be arbitrary to draw a line at a number of animals needed to count. Would two, three, four or ten animals be enough to cross this line? No, one should be enough. The Court accepted the brief's arguments challenging the traditional view that only ecosystems and species are protected by the rights of nature, not individual animals.

In short, the ALPP and NhRP representatives urged the Court to determine that:

1. Animals can be subjects of rights.
2. Writs of habeas corpuscan be appropriate for animals.
3. Animals are subjects of rights protected by the rights of nature.

The amicusbrief also requested that the relevant governmental entities create protocols to guarantee the rights of animals under the rights of nature andhabeas corpus.

More on the Decision and Its Significance

The Constitutional Court of Ecuador warned that animals should not be protected only from an ecosystemic perspective or from a view that focuses on the needs of human beings, but mainly from a perspective that focuses on theirindividualityandintrinsic value(paragraph 79).

This approach is right because protecting only species, while neglecting the protection of the individual animals that together make up the species, endangers a significant number of animals and increases the likelihood of extinction. Even in the case of animals whose species is not endangered, neglecting or failing to protect individual animals has an impact (paragraph 126).

The Court not only recognized animals as subjects of rights protected by the rights of nature, but also outlined the rights that apply to some or all animals. These include the:

• Right to exist (paragraph 111).
• Right not to be hunted, fished, captured, collected, extracted, kept, detained, trafficked, traded or exchanged (paragraph 112).
• Right to the free development of their animal behavior (paragraph 112), which includes the right to behave according to their instinct, the innate behaviors of their species and those learned and transmitted among the members of their population, and the right to freely develop their biological cycles, processes and interactions (paragraph 113). Animals must be guaranteed sufficient space and social conditions to ensure the possibility of the free development of their animal behavior (paragraph 137).
• Right to freedom and good living (paragraph 119). Animals have the right to freedom of movement (paragraph 137).
• Right to food according to the species' nutritional requirements (paragraph 119). Animals must have access to adequate food and water to maintain their health and strength (paragraph 137).
• Right to live in harmony (paragraph 119).
• Right to health (paragraph 119). Animals must be ensured adequate sanitary conditions to protect their health and physical integrity (paragraph 137).
• Right to a habitat (paragraph 119).
• Right to demand their rights from the competent authorities (paragraph 121).
• Right to physical, mental and sexual integrity (paragraph 133).
• Right to live in an environment that is suitable for each species, with adequate shelter and resting conditions (paragraph 137).
• Right to life (paragraph 155). Animals must be ensured life in a violence-free environment, as well as an environment free from disproportionate cruelty, fear and distress (paragraph 137).

Additionally, the Court noted that a wild animal's rights to life, freedom and integrity, among others, must be protected regardless of the claims, intentions or desires of third parties. If the judges determine "that the deprivation or restriction of the freedom of a wild animal is unlawful, they must provide the most suitable alternative for the preservation of the life, freedom, integrity, and other related rights of the victim […]" (paragraph 173). The implication is that the environmental authority in Ecuador failed to meet this requirement by confining Estrellita in the zoo. It is possible that the conditions in the zoo contributed to her death.

Although Estrellita's case was not suitable for the writ ofhabeas corpusdue to her death, the Court stated that, depending on the circumstances of the case,habeas corpuscan be an appropriate action to request the release of a wild animal.

The Court explained that even though it has so far examined the rights of nature in "action for protection" cases, which is a specific type of action in Ecuador, the action for protection is not the only adequate action to protect the rights of nature or any of its elements, including animals. Therefore, suggesting that other actions such ashabeas corpusmay also be adequate to protect the rights of nature and animals, the Court stated that judges must examine which action best suits the context and the claims of the case.

Additionally, as proposed in theamicusbrief, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador ordered the Ministry of Environment to develop a protocol to assess the circumstances and needs of captive wild animals to guarantee their protection. 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.

Why Is This Decision Worth Celebrating Globally?

In this time of catastrophic climate crisis and the sixth mass extinction of species, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador's judgment constitutes one of the most important legal advances in the field of nonhuman rights and environmental law in recent years. Until this ruling, legal practitioners, scholars and advocates had centered the protection of nature on ecosystems and species, not individuals. Moreover, much of the work on the rights of nature did not consider animals as rightsholders. The Court's groundbreaking ruling advances the constitutional protection of animals, with their own inherent value and needs, from the level of species to the individual animal.

Source:NONHUMAN RIGHTS BLOG

This news article was translated into Turkish by M. Enes Gündüz.