Horizon

Afraid this was fairly well settled in 1972 by Sierra Club v. Morton, although Justice Douglas wrote an eloquent dissent suggesting otherwise.

In this case, where petitioner asserted no individualized harm to itself or its members, it lacked standing to maintain the action. Pp. 731-741.

Is this what you mean? Still seems a far cry from the diffuse appeal to aesthetics to actually claiming to represent the "Cetacean community".

If we're going to have porpoises issuing writs then fair's fair; a return to animal trials, say I.

Alan H - Far as I can tell without close investigation, the question in both cases was whether an attorney could properly claim to represent the interests of trees or beasts or whether the attorney must be able to point to a human client with an ordinary human kind of stake in the outcome. The decision in both cases was prudent, really, because cetaceans, like trees, are (at least thus far) unable to communicate effectively with human counsel & thus incapable of giving informed consent to representation. From the porpoises' point of view, a big problem with a judge accepting a well-intentioned environmentalist lawyer's claim to "represent" the porpoises is that an oil company or Navy lawyer could make the very same claim for self-serving purposes -- for example, in order to negotiate a toothless settlement -- without any fear of contradiction by such "clients."

Alan A - Actually, a kind of animal trials have become a minor specialty of my legal aid volunteer work. I have represented a number of homeless people whose dogs were accused of biting or other aggressive behavior. These are actually administrative hearings, and the reason they are held is the owner's Fourteenth Amendment right against deprivation of property without due process of law -- i.e. the dog has the same legal status as a towed car or a disputed public benefit entitlement. But in practice the dog is on trial, and, per local ordinance, may be sentenced to obedience school, muzzling & chaining when outdoors, or execution by lethal injection. A merciful resolution is often reached, but last year a dog I happened to know fairly well was put down despite the owner's absolute hysteria and my own best efforts to prevent it. It was very sad at the time but I do understand it: he really had bitten people badly at least twice. Unfortunately, dogs on trial are no longer entitled to "the King's bread": if they are returned at all, their owners must pay $10 per day for boarding, which can be a heavy burden by the time a hearing is noticed & held & the decision rendered after due deliberation.