Twelve months ago, the New York Court of Appeals became the first high court in an English-speaking jurisdiction anywhere in the world to agree to hear such an appeal, according to the appellant, The Nonhuman Rights Project, a civil rights organization whose mission is to work through litigation, legislation and education to secure fundamental rights for animals.

The organization, which states that its unique litigation challenges “archaic, unjust, millennia-old legal status quo that sees all nonhuman animals as legal ‘things’ with no rights,” was represented by its consulting attorney, Monica Miller.