Nonhuman Rights Project
The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is an American nonprofit animal rights organization seeking to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman animals from that of property to that of persons, with a goal of securing rights to bodily liberty (the right not to be imprisoned) and bodily integrity (the right not to be experimented on). The organization works largely through state-by-state litigation in what it determines to be the most appropriate common law jurisdictions and bases its arguments on existing scientific evidence concerning self-awareness and autonomy in nonhuman animals.[1]
The mission of the Nonhuman Rights Project is, through education and litigation, to change the common law status of at least some nonhuman animals from mere "things", which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to "persons", who possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty and those other legal rights to which evolving standards of morality, scientific discovery, and human experience entitle them.[1]