Humans are often called as witnesses to testify in courts and before Congress. As we are about to find out, being a witness is not exclusive to humans. Animals, puppets, and robots have also fulfilled that role.

Animals have been called as witnesses in criminal proceedings because they saw the crimes or got involved in one way or another. Some courts have allowed this use of animals, while other judges have plainly refused.

10 Bud The Parrot

In May 2015, 49-year-old Glenna Duram attempted a murder-suicide. She shot her husband, Martin Duram, five times before shooting herself. Martin died, but Glenna survived. Bud, an African grey parrot owned by Martin, was the only witness to the murder.

Bud revealed that Glenna was the shooter when the bird started saying “Don’t f—g shoot” in Martin’s voice. It often repeated what is believed to be the last conversation between the couple. The bird alternated between the voices of Glenna and Martin and always ended with Martin’s words, “Don’t f—g shoot.”

Martin’s mother, Lillian, mentioned that Bud was a filthy bird and was fond of repeating whatever it heard, so it was probably telling the truth. Prosecutors attempted to take Bud to court as a witness, but they were turned down. Nevertheless, Glenna was found guilty of murder.^[1]

9 Elmo

In 2002, Elmo of Sesame Street became the first puppet and nonhuman to testify before the US Congress. (Arguably, it is still the only puppet to have ever testified before Congress.) Elmo appeared before the Education Appropriations Subcommittee to support an increase in funding for teaching music in schools.

The increased funding was to be used to purchase music equipment and fund music research. To play the part, Elmo dressed in a suit and tie. However, not everybody found it funny.

2002 was a busy year for Congress. It was stuck right between the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and the 2003 Iraq War. The September 11, 2001, bombing was still fresh at the time, and Congress was planning a vote on the Iraq War. Besides, Elmo also interrupted other witnesses and tried to eat the microphone.^[2]

8 Murphy The Dog

In 2005, Albert K. Smith was arrested for shooting the boyfriend of his ex-wife. While in a cell, he wrote a letter to somebody named Murphy Smith. The elusive Murphy Smith interested prosecutors who believed they had gotten a lead on the murder. They issued a subpoena and called Murphy in as a witness.

When Murphy arrived at the courthouse, prosecutors were shocked to discover that he was not a human. Instead, he was Smith’s five-year-old Shih Tzu. Murphy the dog had been brought to court by Albert Smith’s unnamed brother. But they were not permitted to enter the courthouse because dogs were not allowed. The embarrassed prosecutors apologized for the mix-up.^[3]

7 Scooby The Dog

In 2008, an unnamed 59-year-old woman was found hanging in her Paris home. Police considered it a suicide, but her family suspected murder. So they insisted on an investigation. The only witness was the woman’s unnamed dog. The pooch was later nicknamed Scooby after the famous fictional investigative dog, Scooby Doo.

Police believe that Scooby was in the home at the time of the woman’s murder. They found a suspect and called Scooby to court as a witness. Prosecutors observed Scooby’s behavior when presented with the suspect to determine whether to continue with the murder investigation or rule its owner’s death as a suicide.

Scooby barked ferociously when presented with the witness. The court did not explain what decision it reached, and we were unable to find a follow-up. However, Judge Thomas Cassuto thanked Scooby for its help, saying the dog showed “exemplary behavior and (was of) invaluable assistance.”^[4]

6 Tango The Dog

French courts obviously have a thing for using dogs as witnesses. In 2014, a French court called another dog as a witness in a murder trial. The pooch was Tango, a nine-year-old Labrador. Tango’s unnamed owner had been murdered, and prosecutors believed that Tango had witnessed the homicide.

Tango was called to the witness stand where the judge ordered the suspect to threaten the dog with a bat. Prosecutors assumed that Tango’s behavior toward the suspect behaving this way would determine whether the suspect was the murderer.

To ensure that there were no errors, prosecutors used Norman, another nine-year-old Labrador, as a control. The suspect also threatened Norman with a bat. Afterward, Norman’s reaction was compared to Tango’s. Although we do not know how the dogs responded, the exercise was considered a failure. The suspect’s lawyer said it was “absurd.”^[5]

5 Officer Azor K9

In 2012, Rodney McGee appeared in a Florida court over a traffic citation. However, he called for a postponement of the proceedings because one of his key witnesses was not in court. The witness was Officer Azor K9, a German shepherd police dog.

McGee was so serious about having Officer Azor K9 in court that McGee had issued a subpoena. He was clearly shocked when a police handler led Azor into the courtroom. Apparently, McGee had not believed that the police would be crazy enough to bring a dog to court as a witness.

McGee had subpoenaed Azor because the dog had been present at the scene when police suspected that McGee had drugs in his car. McGee said he wanted to hide marijuana in the courtroom and determine if Azor could find drugs.

The unimpressed Judge Peter Bell did not allow Azor to testify. Bell did not permit McGee to hide marijuana in the courtroom, either. Instead, the judge ordered McGee to pay a $300 fine for not using his turn signal.^[6]

4 Pepper The Robot

In 2018, Pepper became the first robot to appear before the British Parliament. Several human witnesses, including computer scientists and roboticists, also testified. The idea was to prove the usefulness of robots and artificial intelligence to humans.

Pepper provided evidence about artificial intelligence, robotics, and the fourth industrial revolution. The robot also answered questions from members of Parliament, although it was unclear if the responses were preprogrammed or used artificial intelligence technology.

Pepper is part of a category of smart robots created by SoftBank Robotics, a Japanese company. The robots have microphones, cameras, and touch screens on their chests. They have been used in several roles, including receptionists. However, not everything has not been rosy for the robots. One was fired from its job at a grocery store.^[7]

3 Peach The Dog

In 2013, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which handles criminal prosecution in England and Wales, requested a witness statement from Police Constable Peach of the West Midlands Police Station. Officers at the station wrote back to CPS to inform them that PC Peach was actually PD Peach—that is, Police Dog Peach.

Despite this, CPS insisted it needed a statement from the German shepherd. Peach’s handler wrote the statement after a series of correspondence. The handler used wriggly handwriting, the sort a dog would supposedly use if it could write. The statement read, “I chase him. I bite him. Bad man. He tasty. Good boy. Good boy Peach.”^[8]

The handler signed the statement with Peach’s paw print. Peach was four years old, and his service number started with PD, clearly indicating he was a dog. Officers posted the statement on the wall of their station, and it finally ended up on Facebook and Twitter where CPS became the butt of jokes. CPS was unimpressed.

2 Buddy The Dog

In the early 20th century, a court in the District of Columbia called a dog as a witness in a lawsuit over its ownership. Both Major General Eli Helmick of the US Armed Forces and Keeley Morse, a hat seller, insisted they owned the dog.

Helmick claimed that he had purchased the dog in 1920 and called it Buddy. In November 1921, the pooch disappeared. His wife, Florence, found the missing dog in Keeley Morse’s hat shop several months later. Florence insisted that the dog was called Buddy and belonged to her husband. Morse maintained that the dog, named Prince, was his.

Major General Helmick soon got involved and called the police. They detained the dog when they could not determine its real owner. Both men went to court, where Helmick showed receipts, records, and photographs to prove that he owned the canine. Morse said the evidence was unnecessary because Prince was another dog.

Morse insisted that he had purchased Prince on October 24, the month before Buddy went missing, so it could not have been the general’s missing dog. One at a time, the men argued over the breed of the dog to prove ownership. Judge Edward Kimball later decided to settle the case the good old-fashioned way.

Kimball called the dog into the courtroom as a witness. It was put on a chair where it promptly jumped and ran toward Mrs. Helmick. This action, the judge ruled, proved that the dog belonged to the Helmicks and not Morse.^[9]

1 Max The Parrot

In November 1991, 36-year-old Jane Gill was found dead in her Northern California home. Suspicion fell on Gary Joseph Rasp, Gill’s business partner, who appeared in court as a suspect. The only witness was Max, Gill’s parrot, which probably saw the murder.

Max had remained inside its cage for two days after the murder until Gill’s body was found. The bird was hungry and thirsty when it was rescued. So it was taken to a pet shop where it was nursed back to health. After getting better, Max started to shout, “Richard, no, no, no!”^[10]

Charles Ogulnik, Rasp’s attorney, took an interest in the bird. His client could not be guilty if the parrot had squawked, “Richard, no, no, no!” Ogulnik was questioning a private investigator about looking into the bird’s statements when the district attorney objected.

The judge sustained the objection, ending the bird’s chance of being a witness. Ogulnik later confirmed that he was not trying to produce the bird as a witness. He only wanted to introduce evidence provided by the bird.

Max’s location was kept secret after the incident. The private investigator joked that the bird was in a witness protection program and its identity had been changed from a parrot to a macaw.

Humans are often called as witnesses to testify in courts and before Congress. As we are about to find out, being a witness is not exclusive to humans. Animals, puppets, and robots have also fulfilled that role.

Animals have been called as witnesses in criminal proceedings because they saw the crimes or got involved in one way or another. Some courts have allowed this use of animals, while other judges have plainly refused.

10 Bud The Parrot

In May 2015, 49-year-old Glenna Duram attempted a murder-suicide. She shot her husband, Martin Duram, five times before shooting herself. Martin died, but Glenna survived. Bud, an African grey parrot owned by Martin, was the only witness to the murder.

Bud revealed that Glenna was the shooter when the bird started saying “Don’t f—g shoot” in Martin’s voice. It often repeated what is believed to be the last conversation between the couple. The bird alternated between the voices of Glenna and Martin and always ended with Martin’s words, “Don’t f—g shoot.”

Martin’s mother, Lillian, mentioned that Bud was a filthy bird and was fond of repeating whatever it heard, so it was probably telling the truth. Prosecutors attempted to take Bud to court as a witness, but they were turned down. Nevertheless, Glenna was found guilty of murder.^[1]

9 Elmo

In 2002, Elmo of Sesame Street became the first puppet and nonhuman to testify before the US Congress. (Arguably, it is still the only puppet to have ever testified before Congress.) Elmo appeared before the Education Appropriations Subcommittee to support an increase in funding for teaching music in schools.

The increased funding was to be used to purchase music equipment and fund music research. To play the part, Elmo dressed in a suit and tie. However, not everybody found it funny.

2002 was a busy year for Congress. It was stuck right between the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and the 2003 Iraq War. The September 11, 2001, bombing was still fresh at the time, and Congress was planning a vote on the Iraq War. Besides, Elmo also interrupted other witnesses and tried to eat the microphone.^[2]

8 Murphy The Dog

In 2005, Albert K. Smith was arrested for shooting the boyfriend of his ex-wife. While in a cell, he wrote a letter to somebody named Murphy Smith. The elusive Murphy Smith interested prosecutors who believed they had gotten a lead on the murder. They issued a subpoena and called Murphy in as a witness.

When Murphy arrived at the courthouse, prosecutors were shocked to discover that he was not a human. Instead, he was Smith’s five-year-old Shih Tzu. Murphy the dog had been brought to court by Albert Smith’s unnamed brother. But they were not permitted to enter the courthouse because dogs were not allowed. The embarrassed prosecutors apologized for the mix-up.^[3]

7 Scooby The Dog

In 2008, an unnamed 59-year-old woman was found hanging in her Paris home. Police considered it a suicide, but her family suspected murder. So they insisted on an investigation. The only witness was the woman’s unnamed dog. The pooch was later nicknamed Scooby after the famous fictional investigative dog, Scooby Doo.

Police believe that Scooby was in the home at the time of the woman’s murder. They found a suspect and called Scooby to court as a witness. Prosecutors observed Scooby’s behavior when presented with the suspect to determine whether to continue with the murder investigation or rule its owner’s death as a suicide.

Scooby barked ferociously when presented with the witness. The court did not explain what decision it reached, and we were unable to find a follow-up. However, Judge Thomas Cassuto thanked Scooby for its help, saying the dog showed “exemplary behavior and (was of) invaluable assistance.”^[4]

6 Tango The Dog

French courts obviously have a thing for using dogs as witnesses. In 2014, a French court called another dog as a witness in a murder trial. The pooch was Tango, a nine-year-old Labrador. Tango’s unnamed owner had been murdered, and prosecutors believed that Tango had witnessed the homicide.

Tango was called to the witness stand where the judge ordered the suspect to threaten the dog with a bat. Prosecutors assumed that Tango’s behavior toward the suspect behaving this way would determine whether the suspect was the murderer.

To ensure that there were no errors, prosecutors used Norman, another nine-year-old Labrador, as a control. The suspect also threatened Norman with a bat. Afterward, Norman’s reaction was compared to Tango’s. Although we do not know how the dogs responded, the exercise was considered a failure. The suspect’s lawyer said it was “absurd.”^[5]

5 Officer Azor K9

In 2012, Rodney McGee appeared in a Florida court over a traffic citation. However, he called for a postponement of the proceedings because one of his key witnesses was not in court. The witness was Officer Azor K9, a German shepherd police dog.

McGee was so serious about having Officer Azor K9 in court that McGee had issued a subpoena. He was clearly shocked when a police handler led Azor into the courtroom. Apparently, McGee had not believed that the police would be crazy enough to bring a dog to court as a witness.

McGee had subpoenaed Azor because the dog had been present at the scene when police suspected that McGee had drugs in his car. McGee said he wanted to hide marijuana in the courtroom and determine if Azor could find drugs.

The unimpressed Judge Peter Bell did not allow Azor to testify. Bell did not permit McGee to hide marijuana in the courtroom, either. Instead, the judge ordered McGee to pay a $300 fine for not using his turn signal.^[6]

4 Pepper The Robot

In 2018, Pepper became the first robot to appear before the British Parliament. Several human witnesses, including computer scientists and roboticists, also testified. The idea was to prove the usefulness of robots and artificial intelligence to humans.

Pepper provided evidence about artificial intelligence, robotics, and the fourth industrial revolution. The robot also answered questions from members of Parliament, although it was unclear if the responses were preprogrammed or used artificial intelligence technology.

Pepper is part of a category of smart robots created by SoftBank Robotics, a Japanese company. The robots have microphones, cameras, and touch screens on their chests. They have been used in several roles, including receptionists. However, not everything has not been rosy for the robots. One was fired from its job at a grocery store.^[7]

3 Peach The Dog

In 2013, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which handles criminal prosecution in England and Wales, requested a witness statement from Police Constable Peach of the West Midlands Police Station. Officers at the station wrote back to CPS to inform them that PC Peach was actually PD Peach—that is, Police Dog Peach.

Despite this, CPS insisted it needed a statement from the German shepherd. Peach’s handler wrote the statement after a series of correspondence. The handler used wriggly handwriting, the sort a dog would supposedly use if it could write. The statement read, “I chase him. I bite him. Bad man. He tasty. Good boy. Good boy Peach.”^[8]

The handler signed the statement with Peach’s paw print. Peach was four years old, and his service number started with PD, clearly indicating he was a dog. Officers posted the statement on the wall of their station, and it finally ended up on Facebook and Twitter where CPS became the butt of jokes. CPS was unimpressed.

2 Buddy The Dog

In the early 20th century, a court in the District of Columbia called a dog as a witness in a lawsuit over its ownership. Both Major General Eli Helmick of the US Armed Forces and Keeley Morse, a hat seller, insisted they owned the dog.

Helmick claimed that he had purchased the dog in 1920 and called it Buddy. In November 1921, the pooch disappeared. His wife, Florence, found the missing dog in Keeley Morse’s hat shop several months later. Florence insisted that the dog was called Buddy and belonged to her husband. Morse maintained that the dog, named Prince, was his.

Major General Helmick soon got involved and called the police. They detained the dog when they could not determine its real owner. Both men went to court, where Helmick showed receipts, records, and photographs to prove that he owned the canine. Morse said the evidence was unnecessary because Prince was another dog.

Morse insisted that he had purchased Prince on October 24, the month before Buddy went missing, so it could not have been the general’s missing dog. One at a time, the men argued over the breed of the dog to prove ownership. Judge Edward Kimball later decided to settle the case the good old-fashioned way.

Kimball called the dog into the courtroom as a witness. It was put on a chair where it promptly jumped and ran toward Mrs. Helmick. This action, the judge ruled, proved that the dog belonged to the Helmicks and not Morse.^[9]

1 Max The Parrot

In November 1991, 36-year-old Jane Gill was found dead in her Northern California home. Suspicion fell on Gary Joseph Rasp, Gill’s business partner, who appeared in court as a suspect. The only witness was Max, Gill’s parrot, which probably saw the murder.

Max had remained inside its cage for two days after the murder until Gill’s body was found. The bird was hungry and thirsty when it was rescued. So it was taken to a pet shop where it was nursed back to health. After getting better, Max started to shout, “Richard, no, no, no!”^[10]

Charles Ogulnik, Rasp’s attorney, took an interest in the bird. His client could not be guilty if the parrot had squawked, “Richard, no, no, no!” Ogulnik was questioning a private investigator about looking into the bird’s statements when the district attorney objected.

The judge sustained the objection, ending the bird’s chance of being a witness. Ogulnik later confirmed that he was not trying to produce the bird as a witness. He only wanted to introduce evidence provided by the bird.

Max’s location was kept secret after the incident. The private investigator joked that the bird was in a witness protection program and its identity had been changed from a parrot to a macaw.

Courts can categorize nonhuman entities like rivers, forests, mountains, and animals as humans. The courts do not necessarily call them humans straight-up. Instead, they give them the same rights given to humans.

When this happens, harm against the nonhuman entity will carry the same punishment as harm against humans. Imagine getting tried for assault because you whipped a river. Nobody has been charged for that so far, so we have yet to be treated to some legal humor.

10 Whanganui River

The Whanganui River in New Zealand is the first river to receive the same rights as a human. The Maori tribe call the river Te Awa Tupua and consider it their ancestor. The Maori generally consider nonliving entities like rivers, seas, and mountains sacred and believe they have the same rights as people.

The Maori had been trying to get New Zealand to recognize the Whanganui River as a living entity for over 140 years. This came to an end in 2017, when a New Zealand court ruled that the river now had the same rights as humans.

This means, as implied above, that anybody who harms the river could receive punishments reserved for harming a person. Considering that rivers don’t talk, the court appointed two people (a Maori and a government official) as the Whanganui’s guardians.^[1]

9 Ganges And Yamuna Rivers

In 2017, a court in the state of Uttarakhand in India ruled that the Ganges and Yamuna rivers could be protected by the same rights as humans. (The Ganges is pictured above.) Interestingly, the judgment was inspired by New Zealand’s Whanganui River decision, which had been made barely a week earlier.

The Hindus consider the Ganges and Yamuna rivers sacred. However, both rivers are heavily polluted. Some 1.5 billion liters (400 million gal) of sewage and 500 liters (132 gal) of industrial waste is dumped into the Ganges every day. Cremated human remains are also a problem. Some parts of the Ganges are so polluted they have become uninhabitable for aquatic life.

People soon started to blame the governments of Uttarakhand and the neighboring Uttar Pradesh, which the Ganges also flows through, for not doing enough to protect the sacred rivers. This caused the court in Uttarakhand to determine that the rivers could receive the same rights as humans.

Anybody who polluted the river could have been charged for assault or even murder. Because of obvious communication problem between rivers and humans, the court appointed three people as the rivers’ guardians.

Unfortunately, the Indian supreme court overruled the judgment a few months later after Uttarakhand’s state government contested the ruling. The state government insisted that a river could not be considered human. It argued that the judgment would lead to weird court cases whenever somebody drowns in the rivers or they flood.^[2]

8 Te Urewera

In 2014, the New Zealand government passed the Te Urewera Act. Named after the Te Urewera National Park, the act determined that the forest that forms the national park could receive the same rights as humans.

The new law stated the forest could no longer be classified as a national park because it cannot be owned by a human being or the government. Its new owner is itself. However, a board of humans was created to become the guardians of the forest. The law was passed to preserve the history and ecology of Te Urewera.^[3]

On a side note, some Canadian academics have suggested that a law similar to the Te Urewera Act could be passed to protect heavenly bodies. Commercialization of space is a hot topic, and it is only a matter of time before some private businesses starts mining minerals from asteroids.

7 All Animals In Uttarakhand

A year after ruling that a river could be legally human, Uttarakhand returned to grant human rights to nonhuman entities. This time, it was animals. The judgement ruled that all animals in the state have the same rights as humans.

The law was passed to stop animal cruelty, illegal poaching, and pollution. Curiously, it covered all domestic and wild animals, including birds and fishes. Instead of appointing a few people as guardians of the state’s animals, the court appointed every citizen of the state as guardians.

Yes, everybody in Uttarakhand is obligated to see that every animal in the state is protected and cared for. The court declared every state citizen in loco parentis (Latin for “in the place of a parent”).

The law also banned people with domestic animals from using dangerous tools on the animals. All work animals are also required to be freed from their harnesses whenever temperatures go over 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 °F) or fall below 5 degrees Celsius (41 °F). Animals used for transportation are also required to be boldly marked to prevent accidents.^[4] Given that the Supreme Court of India struck down the ruling concerning the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, we’ll see if this one lasts.

6 Sandra The Orangutan

In 2015, an Argentinian court granted Sandra, a 29-year-old orangutan living in a zoo in Buenos Aires, the same rights as humans. Unlike other judgments, this ruling didn’t start off as an attempt to have the court give Sandra the same rights as a human.

The whole thing began in 2014 when the Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) demanded that the zoo release Sandra. The zoo refused, and the animal right activists litigated.

Instead of trying to get the zoo to release Sandra, the animal right activists filed a habeas corpus petition to force the court to determine if Sandra should be treated as a person or thing. Such petitions are usually filed to determine if it is legal for a person to be imprisoned.

Habeas corpus petitions are generally only filed for humans. However, the AFADA’s attorneys filed one for an orangutan and delcared that Sandra should be considered a “non-human person,” effectively giving her the same rights given to a human. In 2015, a judge agreed.^[5] Attempts were made to have Sandra freed and transported to a sanctuary in Brazil. As of 2017, however, she remained at the zoo.

5 Happy The Elephant

Still on habeas corpus, a New York court gave an elephant the same rights as humans in November 2018, after attorneys of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) successfully filed a habeas corpus petition on its behalf. The elephant in question is 47-year-old Happy, which lives in the Bronx Zoo in New York.

The Nonhuman Rights Project argued that Happy was lonely and did not get enough space. Her partners had either been euthanized or killed by other elephants. Besides being the first elephant to have ever been granted the same rights as a human, Happy is the first elephant to pass the mirror self-recognition test, used to test self-awareness in animals.

The success of the habeas corpus petition allowed the court set a date to determine whether Happy will be left in the zoo or freed and transported to an elephant sanctuary.^[6]

4 A Pair Of Chimpanzees

And still on habeas corpus, in 2015, the Nonhuman Rights Project filed a petition on behalf of two chimpanzees held at Stony Brook University, Long Island, New York. The chimpanzees were called Hercules and Leo and were used for biomedical research. NhRP claimed they were being illegally imprisoned at the school.

NhRP filed its first habeas corpus action for the chimpanzees in 2013, but it was thrown out. It filed several more until 2015, when New York state supreme court judge Barbara Jaffe issued a writ of habeas corpus and ordered Stony Brook University’s attorneys to appear in court.

As with other cases, the writ issued by the court effectively granted Hercules and Leo the same rights as humans. Now, it was left to the university’s attorneys to successfully argue that the chimps’ imprisonment was legal.

Judge Jaffe later withdrew the habeas corpus writ for unknown reasons. However, the case remained.^[7] Leo and Hercules were ultimately released and transported to a sanctuary in Georgia.

3 Mount Taranaki

In 2017, a New Zealand court granted Mount Taranaki the same rights as humans. The judgment made Mount Taranaki the third natural geographic feature to be granted human rights in New Zealand.

The law was passed at the urging of the Maori, who consider the mountain, a volcano that has not erupted since 1775, an ancestor and relative. The ruling was also intended to preserve the mountain, which is a popular tourist attraction.

Any harm against the mountain will be considered harm against the Maori people. As usual, the court appointed the Maori and the New Zealand government as guardians of the mountain.^[8]

2 The Amazon Rainforest In Colombia

The gradual loss of the Amazon has been in the news for some years. The forest is being destroyed by farmers, miners, loggers, and cocaine planters. Colombia has stepped in to protect the part of the Amazon within its territory, which is the same size as England and Germany combined.

As part of a judgement passed in 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the part of the Amazon rainforest within Colombia’s borders has the same rights as a human. The court also ordered the government to protect the forest and blamed it for not stopping deforestation and not protecting the forest much earlier.

While Colombia has taken steps to protect its own part of the Amazon, Brazil, which has an absolutely massive chunk of the Amazon, has not granted the rainforest human rights or anything of that sort. And it does not seem like it will be doing so anytime soon.

In fact, Brazil was considering suspending a law that banned the deforestation of the Amazon for sugarcane farming at the time Colombia passed its law. Or maybe we blame the Brazilian youth for not protecting the rainforest because Colombia made its ruling after 25 children and young adults between ages seven and 26 filed a lawsuit.^[9]

1 Atrato River

In 2017, the no-nonsense Colombian courts granted human rights to the Atrato River, which flows through Choco Department in the northwestern part of the country. As part of the judgment, the court ruled that we humans are one of the many species on Earth and do not own other creatures.

Like the Amazon, the Atrato River has been heavily damaged by illegal loggers and miners. The pollution in the river is so severe that aquatic life is being threatened. The Atrato is fed by over 15 other rivers and 300 streams. The water comes in clean but quickly becomes contaminated the moment it enters the river. The court also ordered the government to clean up the Atrato.^[10]