Five Orcas, Five Slaves or Five Persons? - The PETA Lawsuit
PETA’s lawsuit on behalf of five orcas at SeaWorld could end in a splash or a belly flop for animal rights.
One legal scholar, and proponent of achieving legal rights for nonhumans, sees a lawsuit by PETA to classify five SeaWorld orcas as slaves under the 13th Amendment could damage future animal rights law cases. (Jupiterimages)
In late December we asked the provocative question “Should Animals Be Considered People?” in exploring the philosophy of legal scholar Steven Wise. Since 1984, Wise has followed a 25-year plan to have animals declared “legal persons” and afforded basic common law rights.
As we wrote then, “He hopes to bring the first lawsuit in 2012. A case, he says, will not be hard to find, although the exact plaintiff — circus elephant, research lab primate? — hasn’t been determined.”
An adjunct professor at Oregon’s Lewis and Clark Law School, Wise is the founder and president both of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights and the Nonhuman Rights Project, the world’s first nonprofit dedicated to achieving legal rights for nonhuman primates. The rights project currently comprises dozens of political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, lawyers, statisticians, cognitive scientists, primatologists, cetacean experts, public policy experts and others working quietly to ready the most powerful lawsuit they can. They are working to identify judges and jurisdictions that have previously shown themselves open to considering and embracing legal change. The lawsuit, Wise emphasized, had to be exactly right or it would be doomed to fail.
Last week Wise moved, not on his own lawsuit but as a so-called “friend of the court” in a previously filed case where the plaintiffs are “Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka and Ulises, five orcas.” And while the center’s amicus curiae motion and Wise’s individual affidavit have been accepted by the court, neither the defendants nor the group representing the plaintiffs want him involved.
In October 2011, the animal rights activists’ group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, jumped the gun in Wise’s eyes by filing a federal lawsuit against SeaWorld and its theme parks in San Diego and Orlando claiming the orcas were subject to “involuntary servitude.” The orcas regularly entertain crowds at SeaWorld’s theme parks. And the PETA humans behind the lawsuit, three marine-mammal experts and two former trainers — the orcas’ “next friends,” in legal parlance — want to see the five relocated from confined spaces to suitable sanctuaries.