Great ape personhood is a movement to extendpersonhood and some legal protections to the non-human members of thegreat ape family:bonobos,chimpanzees,gorillas, andorangutans.[1][2][3]
Advocates includeprimatologistsJane Goodall andDawn Prince-Hughes, evolutionary biologistRichard Dawkins, philosophersPaola Cavalieri andPeter Singer, and legal scholarSteven Wise.[4][5]
On February 28, 2007, the parliament of theBalearic Islands, an autonomous community ofSpain, passed the world's first legislation that would effectively grant legalpersonhood rights to all great apes.[6] On June 25, 2008, a parliamentary committee set forth resolutions urging Spain to grant the primates the right to life and liberty. If approved "it will ban harmful experiments on apes and make keeping them for circuses, television commercials, or filming illegal under Spain's penal code."[7]
In 1992,Switzerland amended itsconstitution to recognize animals asbeings and notthings.[8] However, in 1999 the Swiss constitution was completely rewritten, and this distinction was removed. A decade later,Germany guaranteed rights to animals in a 2002 constitutional amendment, the firstEuropean Union member to do so.[8][9][10]
New Zealand created specific legal protections for five great ape species in 1999.[11] The use ofgorillas,chimpanzees andorangutans in research, testing, or teaching is limited to activities intended to benefit the animals or its species. A New Zealand animal protection group later argued the restrictions conferred weaklegal rights.[12]
Several European countries including Austria, the Netherlands, and Sweden have completelybanned the use of great apes in animal testing.[13] Austria was the first country to ban experimentation on lesser apes. UnderEU Directive 2010/63/EU, the entire European Union banned great ape experimentation in 2013.
Argentina granted a captive orangutan basic rights in late 2014.[14]
On April 20, 2015, Justice Barbara Jaffe of theNew York Supreme Court ordered a writ ofhabeas corpus to two captive chimpanzees.[15][unreliable source] The next day the ruling was amended to strike the words "writ of habeas corpus".[16][17][18]
Well-known advocates include primatologistJane Goodall, who was appointed a goodwill ambassador for theUnited Nations to fight thebushmeat trade and endape extinction;Richard Dawkins, former Professor for the Public Understanding of Science atOxford University;Peter Singer, professor of philosophy atPrinceton University; and attorney and former Harvard professorSteven Wise, founder and president of theNonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), whose aim is to use U.S. common law on a state-by-state basis to achieve recognition of legal personhood for great apes and other self-aware, autonomous non-human animals.[4][19][unreliable source]
In December 2013, the NhRP filed three lawsuits on behalf of four chimpanzees being held in captivity in New York State, arguing that they should be recognized as legal persons with the fundamental right to bodily liberty (i.e. not to be held in captivity) and that they are entitled to common law writs ofhabeas corpus and should be immediately freed and moved to sanctuaries.[20] All three petitions for writs of habeas corpus were denied, allowing for the right to appeal. The NhRP is[when?] appealing all three decisions.[21]
Goodall'slongitudinal studies revealed the social and family life of chimps to be similar to those of human beings. Goodall describes them as individuals, and claims they relate to her as an individual member of the clan. Laboratory studies ofape language ability revealed other human traits, as didgenetics, and eventually three of the great apes were reclassified ashominids.
Other studies, such as one done by Beran and Evans,[22] indicate other qualities that humans share with non-human primates, namely the ability to self-control. In order for chimpanzees to control their impulsivity, they use self-distraction techniques similar to those that are used by children. Great apes also exhibited ability to plan as well as project "oneself into the future", known as"mental time travel". Such complicated tasks require self-awareness, which great apes appear to possess: "the capacity that contribute to the ability todelay gratification, since a self-aware individual may be able to imagine future states of the self".[23]
The recognition of great ape intelligence, alongside the increasing risk of great ape extinction, has led theanimal rights movement to put pressure on nations to recognize apes as having limitedrights and being legal "persons." In response, theUnited Kingdom introduced a ban on research using great apes, although testing on other primates has not been limited.[24]
Writer and lecturer Thomas Rose argues that granting legal rights to non-humans is not a new concept. He points out that in most of the world, "corporations are recognized as legal persons and are granted many of the same rights humans enjoy, the right to sue, to vote, and to freedom of speech."[6]Dawn Prince-Hughes has written that great apes meet the commonly accepted standards for personhood: "self-awareness; comprehension of past, present, and future; the ability to understand complex rules and their consequences on emotional levels; the ability to choose to risk those consequences, a capacity forempathy, and the ability tothink abstractly."[25]
Gary Francione questions the concept of granting personhood on the basis of whether the animal is human-like (as some have argued) and believessentience should be the sole criterion used to determine if an animal should enjoy basic rights. He asserts that several other animals, including mice and rats, should also be granted such rights.[26]
Depending on the exact wording of any proposed or adopted declaration, personhood for the great apes raises questions concerning protections and obligations under national and international laws including:
