Unlocking the Cage

Following the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) attorneys as they visit animal sanctuaries and humans who privately hold apes in captivity. NhRP argues that elephants, apes and cetaceans have human-like capacities that warrant similar legal status as a five-year old human being in the USA. The legal precedents don't exist in the US, but Sikh holy books in India, a river in New Zealand, and other non-human entities have received person-hood status elsewhere. For many years in the US, corporations and some legal partnerships have received the status of person-hood, but no general rules exist for fetuses and non-human animals. The NhRP team led by Steven M. Wise try to change that during the course of two years tracked in this motion picture.