Nonhuman Rights Project

The Problem: The Legal System Has A Blind Spot & Animals Are Being Harmed

Anyone who has loved a loyal family dog or watched a chimpanzee tenderly care for their offspring already knows what modern science proves: animals are beings with awareness, feelings, and a capacity to suffer. Yet, our justice system still treats them as mere “things.” This legal blind spot allows unnatural confinement and abuse to continue unchecked, causing animals profound physical and psychological harm.

The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) exists to set the system right. We don't just ask for better conditions—we demand justice.

The NhRP's Solution: Access To The Justice System

The NhRP’s strategy is unique and ambitious: we bring groundbreaking litigation while using strategic communications and campaigns to build the public understanding and cultural legitimacy that make legal change possible. Our team approaches this work with decades of experience across impact litigation, appellate advocacy, legal scholarship, strategic communications, and public policy.

By following the playbooks of successful social change movements, our bold approach is already changing the legal status quo, inspiring future litigators, and catalyzing a global conversation about how our legal system treats nonhuman animals.

Our work is redefining what is possible for animals under the law. We were the first to file litigation demanding an enforceable right for an animal. Before the NhRP’s groundbreaking work, judges had never considered habeas corpus petitions on behalf of animals. Every lawsuit we file breaks new legal ground for animals.

Here are other ways our work is moving the needle:

• We secured the only three habeas corpus orders ever issued in the United States on behalf of animals (NY and PA) and the world’s first habeas corpus hearings for chimpanzees (NY) and elephants (NY and PA).
• State high courts in the United States have agreed to hear right-to-liberty cases on behalf of animals only three times—and all three have been NhRP cases: New York, Colorado, and (in 2026) Hawaii.
• We brought Michigan’s first right to liberty case on behalf of chimpanzees and presented the state’s first oral argument on that question before an appellate court.
• Our cases have produced three landmark state high court dissents urging courts to seriously consider animals’ liberty claims—two in Happy’s New York case and one in Michigan.

We Are At A Pivotal Moment

This moment needs the NhRP, and the NhRP needs you.

After 30 years of advancing the idea of animal legal rights, and more than a decade of litigation that has achieved historic firsts and compelled courts to engage seriously with our arguments, this is a crucial period.

Legal scholars, advocacy organizations, and the public increasingly recognize that the current legal paradigm is inadequate to protect animals.

The NhRP exists to set the system right. A contribution to the NhRP is a powerful vote for the kind of world you want to create:

Where the law is fairly and justly applied

Where emboldened judges abandon antiquated precedent to issue decisions aligned with modern science and public values

Where animals are recognized as individuals whose lives, freedom, and wellbeing matter—and where the law protects them accordingly.

Our Work Is Cost-Effective

With an annual budget of $2.4 million, which would constitute a fraction of expenses for other organizations with less impact, the NhRP’s attorneys work on multiple concurrent groundbreaking cases across the U.S.

In 2025, our legal team represented 21 nonhuman clients across five states. In early 2026, when we filed a case on behalf of approximately 2,000 beagles held in documented cruel conditions at Ridglan Farms in Wisconsin, our client count increased dramatically.

The actual value of the pro bono legal services we provide to our nonhuman clients far exceeds our annual organizational budget.

Our work is transformative, visionary, and changing the world for animals.