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Escape Routes: the Possibility of Habeas Corpus Protection for Animals Under Modern Social Contract Theory

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Escape Routes: the Possibility of Habeas Corpus Protection for Animals Under Modern Social Contract Theory ESCAPE ROUTES: THE POSSIBILITY OF HABEAS CORPUS PROTECTION FOR ANIMALS UNDER MODERN SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY Craig Ewasiuk* INTRODUCTION What was old is nEw again, not by choicE but by nEcEssity. In championing the legal rights of nonhuman animals (hereinafter animals), the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) has dEcidEd that moving forward means looking backward, to common-law principles articulatEd centuries earlier. 1 UndEr thE leadErship of StEvEn M. WisE, the NhRP has argued that at common law, “certain nonhuman animals—specifically great apes, dolphins, and elephants—are entitled to such basic legal rights as bodily libErty and intEgrity.”2 ThE NhRP usEd this common-law approach in thE NEw York StatE courts to argue that chimpanzees should bE entitled to habEas corpus protection.3 ThE Appellate Division rEjEctEd this argumEnt and lowEr State Supreme courts followed suit, denying writs to four chimpanzEEs: Tommy,4 Kiko,5 HErculEs, and LEo.6 ThE NhRP’s tack * Attorney, Office of the General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board. PhD, Cornell University; JD, New York University School of Law. The author would like to thank Clement Fatovic, Kate Gordy, Eric Hoyer, Annie Winter, and David Wolfson for their comments and criticism on earliEr drafts of this articlE, and Thor PEtersen for his excellent Editorial suggestions. 1. See Why We Work Through Common Law, THE NONHUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT, http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org/why-we-work-through-the-com mon-law/ (last visited Sept. 18, 2016) (“The Nonhuman Rights Project will focus on establishing fundamental rights that can be achieved through the common law, sincE a common law court can do what it bEliEvEs justicE rEquirEs . .”). 2 . Q&A about thE Nonhuman Rights ProjEct, THE NONHUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT, http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org/qa-about-thE-nonhuman-rights- project/ (last visited Sept. 18, 2016). 3. See infra Part I. 4. People ex rel. Nonhuman Rights ProjEct, Inc. v. Lavery, 124 A.D.3d 148, 150 (N.Y. App. Div. 2014), appeal denied, 26 N.Y.3d 902 (N.Y. 2015) [hereinafter Tommy]. 70 COLUMBIA HUMAN RIGHTS LAW REVIEW [48.2 inadvErtently embroilEd the judges in an obscure political theory question: whether early modern social contract thEory insists that in ordEr to possess “rights,” one must assume “duties.” 7 ThE courts, exclusively rElying on recEnt scholarship to understand the issue, said yes. This Article argues that the courts errEd in rElying on scholarship that was itsElf mistaken. UndoubtEdly, modern social contract theory has paid scant attention to the role of animals as rights-bearing subjects.8 Political theory and political philosophy have traditionally focusEd on what distinguishes human bEings from other animals. 9 In thE modErn period, political theorists havE typically viewed humankind as a transformative species, one that moves on its own trajectory,10 not 5. Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc., ex rel. Kiko v. PrEsti, 124 A.D.3d 1334, 1335 (N.Y. App. Div. 2015), appeal denied, 126 A.D.3d 1430 (N.Y. App. Div. 2015) [hereinafter Kiko]. 6. Nonhuman Rights ProjEct, Inc. ex rel. HErculEs & LEo v. StanlEy, 49 Misc. 3d 746, 773 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2015) [hereinafter Hercules & Leo]. 7. See Tommy, 124 A.D.3d at 150–51. 8. See ALASDAIR COCHRANE, AN INTRODUCTION TO ANIMALS AND POLITICAL THEORY 4–5, 56–77 (2010). WhilE I disagrEE with CochranE’s rEading of important canonical sources, he provides a good overview of the marginalization of animals in modern social contract theory. 9. SEE gEnErally HANNAH ARENDT, THE HUMAN CONDITION, chs. I–III (2nd ed. 1958) (arguing, for example, that humans distinguish ourselves from other animals by being able to partake in work—the interaction between the natural world and human artisanship—as opposEd to mErE labor, thE production of necessities) [hereinafter ARENDT, HUMAN CONDITION]; COCHRANE, supra notE 8, ch. 2 (surveying the history of thinking on the relationship between justice and animals). 10. Early modern political thought focuses on how humankind embarks on a historical pathway that diverges from the regular cyclEs of naturE that bind thE lives of animals. In a secularized version of the “fall of man,” humankind, lacking the instincts of animals but possessing reason and free will, is said to have an inharmonious relationship with nature and must struggle to find a place for itself via the process of history. By contrast, animals, lacking reason and free will but possessing strong instincts, have a harmonious relationship with nature. As anonymous members of a species, they are born, die, and are born again repeatedly. See, e.g., JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, THE DISCOURSES AND OTHER EARLY POLITICAL WRITINGS 141 (Victor GourEvitch Ed. and trans., 1997) (“[T]hE faculty of perfecting oneself . with thE aid of circumstancEs, succEssivEly develops all the others, and resides in us, in the species as well as in the individual, whereas an animal is at the end of several months what it will be for the rest of its life, and its species is after a thousand years what it was in the first year of those thousand.”); IMMANUEL KANT, POLITICAL WRITINGS 43 (Hans REiss ed., H. B. Nisbett trans., 1991) (“Nature has willEd that man should producE 2017] EscapE Routes 71 bound by the cycles of nature that seem to bind other species.11 ThEsE traditions also tend to focus on humans’ unique capacity for speech and reason, our broadEr tEmporal horizons, and our ability to think in abstractions, such as principles and laws.12 This sharp human-animal distinction can distort how contemporary interpretErs view the implications of broadEr philosophical argumEnts in classical texts. An author’s obsErvations on differences between humans and animals can bleed together with his treatment of othEr topics, short-circuiting textual argumEnts so that readers draw conclusions from what they pErceive an author to mean rathEr than on what hE actually wrotE. This distortion is amplified by the fact that, for the past thirty years or more, theorists entirely by his own initiative everything what goes beyond the mechanical ordering of his animal existence, and that he should not partake of any other happiness or perfection than that which he has procured for himself without instinct and by his own reason.”); FREDERICK ENGLES & KARL MARX, ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL MANUSCRIPTS OF 1844 75 (Martin Milligan trans., 2007) (“Conscious life-activity directly distinguishes man from animal life-activity. In creating an objective world by his practical activity, in working-up inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious speciEs being . Admittedly animals also produce. They build themselves nests, swellings, like the bees, beavers, ants, etc. But an animal only produces what it immediately needs for itself or its young. It produces one-sidedly, whilst man produces universally.”). In the twentieth century, one group of thinkers saw human history ending not with self-destruction, but with the “animalization of man.” See, e.g., ALEXANDRE KOJÈVE, INTRODUCTION TO THE READING OF HEGEL 158–59 (James H. Nichols, Jr. trans., 1980) (stating that at the end of human history, “men would construct their Edifices and works of art as birds build their nests and spiders spin their webs, would perform musical concerts after the fashion of frogs and cicadas, would play likE young animals, and would indulge in love like adult beasts.”). 11. As Hannah Arendt writes, “The mortality of man lies in the fact that individual life . with a recognizable life-story from birth to death, rises out of biological life . This individual life is distinguished from all other things by the rectilinear course of its movement, which, so to spEak, cuts through thE circular movements of biological life. This is mortality: to move along a rectilinear line in a universe where everything, if it moves at all, moves in a cyclical order.” HANNAH ARENDT, BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE: EIGHT EXERCISES IN POLITICAL THOUGHT 42 (1977) (foreign terms omittEd). 12. See genErally ARENDT, HUMAN CONDITION, supra notE 9, at 27 (discussing, for example, Aristotle’s definition of man as “a living bEing capablE of speech,” whose highest capacity was the capacity of contemplation); POLITICAL THEORY AND ANIMAL RIGHTS xiii–xx (Paul A.B. ClarkE & AndrEw LinzEy eds., 1990) (outlining various philosophers’ attempts to explain what distinguishes humans from animals). 72 COLUMBIA HUMAN RIGHTS LAW REVIEW [48.2 havE frequently rElied on “the constitutive othEr” or “othering” as a way to makE sense of canonical texts.13 By looking at an author’s prejudices—Especially prejudices based on race, sex, or national origin—one can often find ways that an excluded identity plays some part in structuring the author’s argument. While providing instructive insights, this approach should bE viEwed as suspect if used to avoid engaging with an author’s argumEnt in all of its complexity. This mEthodological predisposition toward seeing prejudicial assumptions baked into the tradition of western political thought is espEcially problematic when it comEs to biases against animals. With regard to prejudices against human beings, reform-orientEd commEntators can dirEct their insights to hElp fuel popular outrage or energize political intErest groups. The idea that our lEgal and governmental structures are fundamentally unjust and must be overhauled can inspire political action. On the other hand, animals are relatively politically powErless. They do not havE comparably powErful lobbies to advocate for change on their behalf. So not only does the prejudicE-oriented rEading of classical sources not help animals politically, but it also does animal rights advocates a disservice in the courts, where doctrinal traditionalism and stare decisis makE radical change anathEma to most judges. If a judge reads that classical sources agree that animals must bE denied legal protections or rights, then typically shE will not bE inclinEd to rEmEdy this wrong through an innovative ruling.
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