The Legal Status of Whales: capabilities, entitlements and culture
| Autor | Rachel Nussbaum Wichert - Martha Nussbaum |
| Cargo | Friends of Animals, Denver, Estados Unidos - University of Chicago, Chicago, Estados Unidos |
| Páginas | 19-39 |
The Legal Status of Whales: capabilities,
entitlements and culture
O Estatuto Jurídico das Baleias: capacidades, direitos e cultura
Rachel Nussbaum Wichert
Friends of Animals, Denver – Estados Unidos
Martha C. Nussbaum
University of Chicago, Chicago – Estados Unidos
Abstract: Whales, among our planet’s
most majestic, mysterious, powerful, and
intelligent beings, are profoundly endangered.
International law has for some time attempted
to protect them from extinction. Our paper
addresses the legal status of whales and argues
that they should be regarded as creatures
with rights, not simply as commodities.
Currently, international law does not recognize
whales as creatures with rights. International
organizations, particularly the International
Whaling Commission (IWC) and its founding
document, the International Convention for the
Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), have focused
on the issue of overfishing and have allowed
exceptions to usual standards based both on
the alleged needs of scientific research (in the
case of Japan) and on the alleged claims of
culture (in the case of aboriginal groups in the
Arctic).
Keywords: Animal Rights. International Law.
Legal Status of Whales.
Resumo: Baleias, apesar de estarem entre os
seres mais majestosos, misteriosos, poderosos
e inteligentes do nosso planeta, são profunda-
mente ameaçadas. O direito internacional já há
algum tempo tenta protegê-las da extinção. Este
trabalho aborda o estatuto jurídico das baleias
e argumenta que elas devem ser consideradas
criaturas com direitos e não simplesmente com-
modities. Atualmente, o direito internacional
não reconhece as baleias como criaturas com
direitos. Organizações internacionais, particu-
larmente a Comissão Baleeira Internacional
(CIB) e seu documento de fundação, a Conven-
ção Internacional para a Regulação da Ativida-
de Baleeira (CIRB), estão centradas na ques-
tão da caça excessiva e permitiram exceções a
padrões habituais, baseados tanto nas supostas
necessidades de pesquisa científica (no caso do
Japão) como na reivindicação de práticas cultu-
rais (no caso dos grupos indígenas do Ártico).
Palavras-chave: Direitos Animais. Direito In-
ternacional. Estatuto Juridico das Baleias.
Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2177-7055.2016v37n72p19
Recebido em: 04/02/2016
Revisado em: 12/03/2016
Aprovado em: 21/03/2016
*
20 Seqüência (Florianópolis), n. 72, p. 19-40, abr. 2016
The Legal Status of Whales: capabilities, entitlements and culture
They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.
All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge
on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs.
The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers
there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of
the sea!
(D. H. Lawrence, “Whales Weep Not,” 1909)
1 Marine Mammals: moral and legal status
In a related paper, we have explored the moral basis of animal
entitlements, in the context of evolving legal debates about whether
animals can be granted “standing” to approach a court of law (through an
advocate, as is now the case with human with severe disabilities)1. Many
animal rights activists have urged that the best basis for legal (and moral)
standing for animals is suffering, an approach that can be traced to Jeremy
Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism. While we support Bentham’s
radical extension of moral concern to all sentient beings, we argue that
suffering is not the only relevant notion. Intelligence and the ability to be
social are qualities that are at least as important. Indeed, there is a strong
case for considering cetaceans “non-human persons” and according them
legal rights, most importantly standing to sue in their own right. Whales
cannot be said to be “like” humans in terms of DNA, but they have their
own form of intelligence and deserve protection under the law.
On the other hand, we reject as misguidedly anthropocentric the
form of this argument that exalts intelligence above physical suffering.
Each animal species has its own form of life, and each deserves
1 Rachel Nussbaum Wichert and Martha C. Nussbaum, “The Legal Status of Whales
and Dolphins: From Bentham to the Capabilities Approach,” presented at the Human
Development and Capability Association annual meeting, September 2015, and
forthcoming in Agency, Democracy, and Particiipation in Global Development, ed. Lori
Keleher and Stacy J. Kosko (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
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