The organisation that fought a two year battle to free two chimpanzees from a research centre is now turning its attention to the rights of captive elephants. The NonHuman Rights Project argued that Hercules and Leo, two chimps who were kept at Stony Brook University in New York, were autonomous and self determining beings, and therefore cannot be detained. That failed and a judge ruled that non-persons could not use habeas corpus to challenge their detentio, so the organisation is now about to file its first lawsuit on behalf of captive elephants.
Its founder, attorney Steven Wise, explains.
