UC Berkeley

This Article explores the burgeoning fields of artificial intelligence and bioacoustics and their potential to reshape nonhuman animal law. Historically, Western science dismissed nonhuman animal vocalizations as simple and lacking complexity. However, recent advancements in recording technology, artificial intelligence, and interdisciplinary collaborations have revealed that many species, from whales to honeybees, possess sophisticated communication systems. Pioneering projects, like Project Cetacean Translation Initiative's (CETI) work with sperm whales, are challenging long-held assumptions about animal communication and opening the door to new legal and ethical considerations. This Article examines the legal implications of understanding nonhuman animal communication by asking: If these initiatives succeed, how might the legal terrain be reshaped? Proving that cetaceans possess linguistic capacities would challenge the notion that language is exclusive to humans and could reshape legal frameworks, as seen in past reforms following discoveries about great apes. By demonstrating what is already possible, we set the stage for the forward-looking analyses that considers the impact of understanding the content of cetacean communication. Current knowledge about cetacean suffering and needs has been insufficient to fully protect them from human-induced harms, but understanding the content of communication could offer profound insights into their behavior, suffering, and social life, in ways that enable legal change. Insight into communication content could improve regulation of chronic underwater noise pollution under existing laws, catalyze new rights for cetaceans, and spark a fundamental transformation of the station that cetaceans occupy under the law—from property to legal personhood. While this Article focuses on the nonhuman animal whose communications have been most studied, it aims to illuminate the legal implications of the growing number of studies on various nonhuman animals— from birds to elephants and countless others. We invite you to explore this emerging legal landscape with us.