Maori king declares whales are people in push for legal rights

Whales will be recognised as legal persons under a declaration signed by New Zealand’s Maori king and native leaders across the Pacific.

The document seeks to legally protect the rights of whales, including “freedom of movement, cultural expression — which includes language — to a healthy environment, healthy oceans, and indeed the restoration of their populations,” according to Mere Takoko, a Maori conservationist.

Although a moratorium on commercial whaling came into effect in 1985, whales are still hunted in Norway and Iceland. Japan harvests them for what it contends is research.

The declaration, signed last week by the Maori king, Te Arikinui Tuheitia Paki, and 15 paramount chiefs of Tahiti and the Cook Islands, recognises whales as legal persons but will need the backing of governments to be enforceable.

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livus, 28 days ago

Legal personhood endows rights and duties, a status enjoyed by humans but rarely extended to other entities. New Zealand is a frontrunner: in 2017 it passed a historic law that granted personhood status to the Whanganui River because of its importance to Maori, New Zealand’s indigenous people.

Three years earlier, in 2014, New Zealand declared the Te Urewera ranges in the east of the North Island to be the first ecosystem in the world with legal personhood. The law declared: “Te Urewera is a legal entity, and has all the rights, powers, duties and liabilities of a legal person.”

While animal rights have been enshrined in the German constitution since 2002, past attempts to confer legal personhood on them have foundered. A New York appeals court ruled in 2014 that apes cannot give back to society in a way that merits human rights.

Conservationists intend to use the whales declaration, signed on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands last week, as a basis to lobby the governments of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tahiti and Tonga...

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