The Helsinki Group – Speaking up for Cetaceans

It’s time to give traction to a critically important initiative

A few years ago, back in 2010, we finally got around to recognizing that perhaps we are not the only species deserving of legally recognized rights. A conference at the Collegium for Advanced Studies in the University of Helsinki, Finland, produced the world’s first Declaration on the Rights of Cetaceans.

Since then, only one country – India – has granted personhood rights to dolphins. A few, including Canada, are flirting with the idea of awarding legal standing to a number of key species. Beyond that, we’ve made very little progress in this important area. When we decide to stop killing them, it’s usually about conservation or prohibiting cruelty, not because they have a right to their lives. When we end cetacean captivity in one country or another, it’s not because we’ve asserted they have a right to their liberty. It’s time for this to change.

We sincerely hope to see some traction over the next couple of decades.

The text of the Declaration follows, along with a listing of the key stakeholders in the Helsinki Group, who now form the steering committee guiding it forward. It’s worth noting that signatories to the declaration concluded that “International law manifests a growing sense of duty to whales and dolphins; contemporary ethical reflection brings new theoretical tools to bear on cetacean moral status; and scientific research gives us novel insights into the complexities of cetacean minds and societies.”

It’s on this basis that researchers and scholars from the appropriate disciplines came together to “spell out all the implications of such developments, and to build a collective case for the attribution of basic moral and legal rights to cetaceans, great and small.” A tremendous milestone, and we salute the individuals who got this done.

For The Orca’s Voice,
Phil and the Canadian Cetacean Alliance Team


The text of the Declaration reads as follows:

Based on the principle of the equal treatment of all persons;

Recognizing that scientific research gives us deeper insights into the complexities of cetacean minds, societies and cultures;

Noting that the progressive development of international law manifests a growing sense of entitlement by cetaceans;

We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and wellbeing.

We believe that:
1. Every individual cetacean has the right to life.
2. No cetacean should be held in captivity or servitude; be subject to cruel treatment; or be removed from their natural environment.
3. All cetaceans have the right to freedom of movement and residence within their natural environment.
4. No cetacean is the property of any State, corporation, human group or individual.
5. Cetaceans have the right to the protection of their natural environment.
6. Cetaceans have the right not to be subject to the disruption of their cultures.
7. The rights, freedoms and norms set forth in this Declaration should be protected under international and domestic law.
8. Cetaceans are entitled to an international order in which these rights, freedoms and norms can be fully realized.
9. No State, corporation, human group or individual should engage in any activity that undermines these rights, freedoms and norms.
10. Nothing in this Declaration shall prevent a State from enacting stricter provisions for the protection of cetacean rights.

The Helsinki Group
www.cetaceanrights.org HelsinkiGroup@whales.org

Members:
• Ms Philippa Brakes, Whale and Dolphin Conservation
• Mr Chris Butler-Stroud, Whale and Dolphin Conservation
• Dott. Paola Cavalieri, Etica & Animali
• Prof. Sudhir Chopra, Law Fellow, Cambridge Central Asia Forum Cambridge
• Mr Nicholas Entrup, Shifting Values
• Prof. Matti Häyry, University of Manchester
• Dr Lori Marino, Emory University
• Dr Margi Prideaux, Migratory Wildlife Network
• Dott. Franco Salanga, Etica & Animali
• Prof. Thomas I White, Loyola Marymount University
• Prof. Hal Whitehead, Dalhousie University

“We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and wellbeing.”