i found this through a writer friend; the good stuff is at the bottom
also, i haven’t really read all the bio material & know nothing about the people; that said, the document is pretty cool
sorry if its a repost
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The Helsinki Group: http://www.CetaceanRights.org | [email protected]
The Helsinki Group
The Helsinki Group was formed out of the Cetacean Rights: Fostering Moral and Legal Change
Conference’ held in Helsinki, Finland in May 2010, which was the brainchild of philosopher Dott. Paola
Cavalieri.
The Helsinki Group is formed of the founding signatories to the ‘Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans:
Whales and Dolphins’ who now form the Steering Committee guiding the Declaration forward.
Public manifestation of the work of The Helsinki Group is through http://www.cetaceanrights.org
Administrative support for The Helsinki Group is currently provided by WDCS.
The Helsinki Group can be formally contacted through the Group’s Secretariat:
The Helsinki Group
http://www.cetaceanrights.org
[email protected]
Helsinki Group Members
Individual members of The Helsinki Group are:
Ms Philippa Brakes
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
Email: [email protected]
Mr Chris Butler-Stroud
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
Email: [email protected]
Dott. Paola Cavalieri
Etica & Animali
Email: [email protected]
Prof. Sudhir Chopra
Law Fellow, Cambridge Central Asia Forum
Cambridge
Email: [email protected]
Mr Nicholas Entrup
Shifting Values
Email: [email protected]
Prof. Matti Häyry
University of Manchester
Email: [email protected]
Dr Lori Marino
Emory University
Email: [email protected]
Dr Margi Prideaux
Migratory Wildlife Network
Email: [email protected]
Dott. Franco Salanga
Etica & Animali
[email protected]
Prof. Thomas I White
Loyola Marymount University
Email: [email protected]
Prof. Hal Whitehead
Dalhousie University
Email: [email protected]
“We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and wellbeing.”
The Helsinki Group: http://www.CetaceanRights.org | [email protected]
Helsinki Group Member Biographies
Ms Philippa Brakes: Philippa Brakes is a marine biologist, specialising in marine mammal welfare and
the ethical issues associated with our interactions with cetaceans and their environments. She has served
as an expert on cetacean welfare issues and whaling policy with the New Zealand Government delegation
to the International Whaling Commission, as well as serving as an informal adviser to other Government
and non-Government delegations; as a lecturer in Zoological Conservation Management; as Marine
Advisor to the RSCPA; and as the Curator of a British Zoological Gardens. Philippa is co-editor of
Cognition, Culture, Conservation and Human Perceptions (London: EarthScan, 2011)
Mr Chris Butler-Stroud: Chris Butler-Stroud has been the International Director, of WDCS, Whale and
Dolphin Conservation Society since 1999, developing the organization from being solely a funding body
for conservation research into a global advocacy organization. During this time Chris has also activity
participated in international process including the International Whaling Commission both as an Non-
Government participant and also as a specialist adviser to the United Kingdom Government, in
Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species, United Nations Environment Programme
Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (Caribbean), the Convention on Migratory
Species, Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans in the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and
Contiguous Atlantic Areas and the Agreement for the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and
North Seas. Whilst with WDCS, Chris has served for ten years as a Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the
United Kingdom based Wildlife and Countryside Link, a registered charity, coordinating the activities of
over 38 wildlife and countryside non-Government organisations (collectively with a membership of over
eight million supporters) in their policy delivery with the United Kingdom Government.
Dott. Paola Cavalieri: Paola Cavalieri is the editor of the international philosophy journal ‘Etica &
Animali’. She is the author of The Animal Question, Why Nonhuman Animals Deserve Human Rights
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); and ‘The Death of The Animal: A Dialogue’ (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2009). She co-edited, with Peter Singer, the award-winning book: The Great
Ape Project: Equality beyond Humanity (London, Fourth Estate 1993).
Dr. Sudhir Chopra: Professor Chopra is a Law Fellow at the Cambridge Central Asia Forum,
Cambridge, UK since February 2007. Earlier he was with the Lauterpacht Centre for Research in
International Law and Scott Polar Research Institute both 2004-2005; and Wolfson College and the
Centre for International Studies 2005 -2007. In Europe he has held teaching appointments at the
University of Luxembourg, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne – UK, Riga Graduate School of Law -
Latvia, Central European University – Hungary and has also lectured at the Katholic University of
Leuvan, Belgium. In 2006 he was Piet Gilhuis Chair on the Future of Environmental Law in Tilburg
University, Netherlands. In 2012 he has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of
England.
In India he has been a Professor of Law at the Calcutta University (On leave) and National Law School of
India Bangalore, and has been a Lecturer in Law at Delhi University. In North America he has taught at
the University of California Irvine, Western State University College of Law, San Diego and Valparaiso
University, Indiana. He has also taught at the University of West Indies.
Dr. Chopra worked for the Department of Environment Government of India as its first Environmental
Law Officer and later worked for the United States Environmental Protection Agency in Dallas. During
1984-1986 he worked on the Union Carbide Bhopal Disaster Case for the law offices of Kelly Drye and
Warren, New York.
Professor Chopra has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Michigan and Australian National
University and a Research Scholar at Tasmania University, Australia. He has lectured at many
universities and UN/World Bank sponsored training programs. At the American Society of International
Law he served at the Chairman of the Antarctica Group from 1984 to 1994 and Chairman of the Wildlife
The Helsinki Group: http://www.CetaceanRights.org | [email protected]
Law Group from 1986 to 1994 and Co-Chair from 1994 to 2004. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the
International Legal Materials and the Journal of International Wildlife Law.
His major publications are: The Antarctic Legal Regime, co-editor (Nijhoff – 1988); International
Environmental Law, co-author (Lupas – 1993 and 1995); Whales Their Emerging Right to Life, co-author
(American Journal of International Law , 1991). In May 1984 he raised the issue of Ozone Hole, Climate
Change and melting of the Antarctic ice at Canberra ANZAS Congress.
He received B.Sc. (1973), M.A. History (1975), LL.B. (1976), Ph.D. (1994) from Lucknow University,
India; LL.M. (1979) from Dalhousie University Canada; and J.D. (Jan. 1989) from Northwestern
University, Chicago, USA. He was admitted as a Member of the Institute of Charted Arbitrators, UK in
2001 and as an Advocate of the Uttar Pradesh Bar in India in 1976.
Areas of teaching and research interest: International Law, International Economic Law, International
Environmental Law, International Law of the Seas, International and Comparative Intellectual Property
Law, International Organizations, International and European Human Rights Law, Comparative Law,
Administrative Laws of the US, UK and India, Environmental Laws of India and the US, Law and Public
Policy and the Legal History of Utilitarian Thought.
Mr Nicholas Entrup: Nicolas Entrup is the Founder and Director of Shifting Values, an agency
established to implement campaigns and projects that promote and advance a shift of values within
societies. Nicolas has more than 20 years of experience in developing concepts, strategies and plans,
while also coordinating, supervising and implementing teams and national and international multi-lingual
campaigns predominantly addressing animal welfare and species conservation issues, including the
threats posed by direct takes to whales and dolphins, the trade with whale products and/or live dolphins,
military noise pollution caused by the militaries and the oil and gas industry, the captive display of small
whales and dolphins, the display of wild animals in circuses. During this time he has attended more than
20 international conferences of Multilateral Environmental Agreements, established cooperation with
international creative agencies, such as Aimaq, Rapp & Stolle (today “Aimaq von Lobenstein”),
Denkwerk, Jung von Matt, LLR – Lukas, Lindemann, Rosinski, Opium Effect, Treibenreif.com,
developed media cooperation and engaged in cross-marketing cooperation and initiatives involving large
corporates and/or international players.
Dr Matti Häyry: Matti Häyry is Professor of Bioethics and Philosophy of Law at the University of
Manchester, United Kingdom; and during 2009-2011 Professorial Fellow at the University of Helsinki
Collegium for Advanced Studies, Finland. In Manchester, he is the founder and director of the Doctoral
Programme in Bioethics and Medical Jurisprudence. Matti is a founder member of the International
Association of Bioethics, and he served on its Board of Directors during 2001-2009, most recently as the
Association’s President in 2007-2009. He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of 26 books and
volumes, including Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics (Routledge 1994), The Ethics and
Governance of Human Genetic Databases (Cambridge University Press 2007), and Rationality and the
Genetic Challenge: Making People Better? (Cambridge University Press 2010). Matti Häyry was one of
the original signatories of the Declaration on Great Apes in 1993.
Dr Lori Marino: Lori Marino is Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and an affiliate
of the Center for Ethics, both at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She is also Co-founder and
Director of The Aurelia Center for Animals and Cultural Change, a new non-profit organization focused
on the application of science and scholarship to animal advocacy to promote change in how we perceive
other animals. Her research interests include the evolution of brain, intelligence and self-awareness in
cetaceans (dolphins and whales) and other species, human-nonhuman animal relationships, and animal
welfare/rights and ethics. She is the author of over 80 publications in the areas of cetacean neuroanatomy
and brain evolution, comparative behavioral ecology and evolution in cetaceans and primates, and the
ethical dimensions of human-nonhuman relationships. In 2001, she and Diana Reiss published the first
definitive evidence for mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins in the Proceedings of the National
The Helsinki Group: http://www.CetaceanRights.org | [email protected]
Academy of Sciences. She has published several methodological critiques of dolphin-assisted therapy and
dolphin-human interaction programs as well. She teaches animal intelligence, brain imaging, animal
welfare, and many other related courses.
Dr Margi Prideaux: Margi Prideaux is Co-founder and Policy and Negotiations Director for the
Migratory Wildlife Network – an organization established to support civil society to progress migratory
wildlife conservation through international processes. Margi is a specialist in migratory species
protection, with over 20 years of international policy and negotiation experience, working with a number
of international conservation organisations, she has participated in over a dozen different international
legal processes including the International Whaling Commission, the Convention on International Trade
and Endangered Species, and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and has also been a marine
species advisor to CMS. Working with CMS she successfully negotiated an inter-Governmental marine
mammal conservation agreement in the Pacific Islands Region and supported the negotiation of another in
Western Africa. She is currently working with CMS towards a third and fourth in South East Asia and the
Indian Ocean. She has a PhD in International Relations and the development of migratory wildlife
protection policy & law and has been an Associate Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer with the School of
International Studies at the University of South Australia. She has authored numerous reports, papers and
formal conference presentations on migratory species protection, regional agreement development,
marine protected areas and the role of global civil society in track one and two international diplomacy.
Dott. Franco Salanga: Franco Salanga is a certified public accountant working in Milan, Italy. He has
co-authored the history books ‘L’Italia della resistenza’ and ‘La formazione del movimento sindacale a
Varese (1860-1902)’. He is the coordinator of the philosophy journal ‘Etica & Animali.’
Dr Thomas White: Thomas I. White is the Conrad N. Hilton Professor in Business Ethics and Director
of the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.
Professor White received his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University and taught at Upsala
College and Rider University in New Jersey, before moving to California in 1994. Professor White is
the author of five books (Right and Wrong, Discovering Philosophy, Business Ethics, Men and Women at
Work and In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier) and numerous articles on topics ranging
from sixteenth-century Renaissance humanism to business ethics. His most recent research has focused
on the philosophical implications — especially the ethical implications — of the scientific research on
dolphins. Professor White’s latest book, In Defense of Dolphins, addresses the ethical issues connected
with human/dolphin interaction — for example, the deaths and injuries of dolphins in connection with the
human fishing industry and the captivity of dolphins in the entertainment industry. He is currently
working on a book that extends the analysis of In Defense of Dolphins to orcas and the larger whales.
Professor White is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in the United Kingdom and served as
U.S. Ambassador for the United Nations’ Year of the Dolphin program. He is also is a Scientific Advisor
to the Wild Dolphin Project, the research organization supporting Dr. Denise Herzing’s long-term study
of a community of Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas.
Dr Hal Whitehead: Hal Whitehead is the Killam Professor in the Department of Biology at Dalhousie
University in Canada. Dr Whitehead was educated at Cambridge University. His research focuses on
social organization and cultural transmission in the deep-water whales, but he also works on their
ecology, population biology and conservation. Field work is mainly carried out in the North Atlantic and
South Pacific Oceans. He has developed statistical tools and software for analyzing vertebrate social
systems. He uses individual-based stochastic computer models to study cultural evolution, gene-culture
coevolution and mating strategies. Hal Whitehead, who has published numerous refereed journal articles
and book chapters, is the author, among other books, of Analyzing Animal Societies: Quantitative
Methods for Vertebrate Social Analysis (University of Chicago Press, 2008) and of Sperm Whales:
Social Evolution in the Ocean (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003). He is also co-editor of
Cetacean Societies: Field Studies of Dolphins and Whales (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1999).
The Helsinki Group: http://www.CetaceanRights.org | [email protected]
Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans: Whales and Dolphins
Based on the principle of the equal treatment of all persons;
Recognizing that scientific research gives us deeper insights into the complexities of cetacean minds,
societies and cultures;
Noting that the progressive development of international law manifests an entitlement to life by
cetaceans;
We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and wellbeing.
We conclude that:
- Every individual cetacean has the right to life.
- No cetacean should be held in captivity or servitude; be subject to cruel treatment; or be
removed from their natural environment. - All cetaceans have the right to freedom of movement and residence within their natural
environment. - No cetacean is the property of any State, corporation, human group or individual.
- Cetaceans have the right to the protection of their natural environment.
- Cetaceans have the right not to be subject to the disruption of their cultures.
- The rights, freedoms and norms set forth in this Declaration should be protected under
international and domestic law. - Cetaceans are entitled to an international order in which these rights, freedoms and norms can be
fully realized. - No State, corporation, human group or individual should engage in any activity that undermines
these rights, freedoms and norms. - Nothing in this Declaration shall prevent a State from enacting stricter provisions for the
protection of cetacean rights.
Done, 22nd May 2010,
Helsinki, Finland
