Chimpanzees Don’t Have Human Rights, According to Court
Last week a Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court declared that chimpanzees are not people, legally speaking. This does not bode well for the wider and active great ape rights movement.
Last week Justice Karen K. Peters of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court (in what we can only assume is a break from her usual job) took the time to declare that chimpanzees are not people, legally speaking.This ruling follows deliberations over an October case concerning Tommy, a middle-aged ex-entertainer ape belonging to and living in a shed owned by Gloversville, New York resident Patrick Lavery. Filed by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NRP), the plaintiffs argued that, as chimps have near-human intelligence, Tommy should be guaranteed human or near-human rights, namely freedom from personal ownership by other sentient beings.
Annons
But whatever evidence of Tommy's ability to reason, intuit, or love was presented, Justice Peters found it unconvincing in the cold vacuum of legal reasoning. Although the US and many other nationsprotect apes from animal cruelty and limit experimentation on them, there's no precedent for granting apes human or near-human rights, the judge claimed. And besides, chimpanzees, she held, "cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities, or be held legally accountable for their actions."Although the NRP plans to appeal the ruling to the New York State Supreme Court, this accountability-focused definition of personhood upholds and fleshes out the traditionally narrow legal definition of humanity just as the scientific and philosophic borders of our specialness come under fire. While no one ought to expect law to follow science's head scratching or philosophical masturbatory pacing on this issue, the legist's stubbornness does not bode will for the wider and active great ape rights movement.October was not the first time Tommy's case appeared in the New York State court system. The NRP first filed a case for his liberation in December 2013, along with two other cases concerning isolated and privately held New York State apes: Kiko and her late partner, Chimp, two chimpanzees in Niagara Falls trained in martial arts combat; and Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees used in university biomechanical research. After liberation, the organisation argued, the chimpanzees should be released to live freely among other apes in one of eight habitats run by the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (and partially funded by the federal government).