Writing
Art
About
Contact
X Instagram Bluesky LinkedIn Substack
/////
under construction
/////
Christopher Berry
Dog person, artist, and expert on the legal status of nonhuman entities.
I am presently the Executive Director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, where I lead the organization's litigation and strategy to secure fundamental legal rights for nonhuman animals. Over the course of my career, I have opened new legal pathways for nonhuman rights.
At the Animal Legal Defense Fund, I managed a successful effort to obtain a federal court's recognition of Colombia's hippopotamuses as "interested persons" entitled to obtain witness testimony in the United States under 28 U.S.C. § 1782.
At the NhRP, I created "Access to Justice" programming to develop the procedural infrastructure animals need to participate in legal proceedings. I also created the NhRP's "Freedom from Cruelty" programming, which produced the first lawsuit advancing the theory that statutory animal cruelty protections should be treated as legal rights held by the animals themselves, filed on behalf of the Ridglan dogs.
Beyond animal rights, I study the legal status of nonhuman entities broadly: hominids, brain organoids, artificial intelligence, nature (including trees), ships (dead trees), various corporate entities, political entities, and non-human intelligence from beyond Earth. I will happily talk to anyone about any of these legal statuses.
Outside of law, I compose electronic music with samplers and modular synthesizers, paint in watercolor and digital media, and spend a lot of time thinking about cosmology and existence. I am also an amateur astronomer.
This page is under construction. More to come.
Disclaimer: I am licensed to practice law in the State of California. Nothing on this site constitutes legal advice or creates an attorney-client relationship. This disclaimer does not apply to nonhuman intelligences.