On this day in vegan history · December 18, 2014
A Court Calls Sandra a 'Subject of Rights'
An Argentine court gave a caged orangutan a legal status no animal had held before, then let her sit in that cage for five more years.
The facts
- Date
- December 18, 2014
- Location
- Buenos Aires Zoo, Argentina
- Petitioner
- AFADA, an association of animal rights lawyers
- Sanctuary arrival
- Center for Great Apes, Wauchula, Florida, November 5, 2019
On December 18, 2014, an Argentine court ruled on a habeas corpus petition filed by the animal rights group AFADA on behalf of Sandra, an orangutan held alone at the Buenos Aires Zoo. The court termed her a 'subject of rights,' but it denied the habeas corpus itself, and Sandra stayed exactly where she was. Headlines around the world announced an orangutan had been declared a person; the actual ruling was narrower than that. It took a further ruling in October 2015, from Judge Elena Liberatori, to call Sandra a 'non-human person' outright, and four more years after that for her to actually leave, arriving at a Florida sanctuary in November 2019.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
subject of rights
how Wikipedia's account describes the court's language in the December 18, 2014 ruling
Source: Wikipedia -
With that ruling I wanted to tell society something new, that animals are sentient beings and that the first right they have is our obligation to respect them
Judge Elena Liberatori, on the case, quoted by Fox News
Source: Fox News
Why it still matters
Sandra's case became the reference point lawyers reach for whenever they argue a captive great ape or elephant deserves standing to challenge its own confinement, even where, as in her own case, the argument didn't win outright.
Sources
This history is still being written.
Every morning the brief covers what moved veganism forward, and every day one more verified piece of that story joins this almanac. Free, and tomorrow’s lands in your inbox.
Free, every morning. No guilt. No preaching.