Abstract
This article discusses the emergence of new forms of legal existence, based on unprecedented rulings from Argentinean courts which constituted orangutan Sandra and chimpanzee Cecilia as “non-human persons”, bearers of fundamental rights. In both cases, the recognition of animals as sentient beings played a critical role. These rulings have - simultaneously, successively, or alternately - drawn upon different understandings of law and rights, following distinct paths and technical operations. I argue that, through a wide experimentation on possible associations between rights and subjects, persons and things, institutional and non-institutional ways of being, Sandra and Cecilia have become different persons, from one another and from pre-existing legal persons (and things). This outcome highlights the conceptual and pragmatic equivocations of the basic dualism of modern legal systems.
Keywords:
Law; Animals; Person; Thing; Non-human person