Advocates of โlegal personhoodโ to chimpanzees have lost another battle.
This morning, a New York appellate court rejected a lawsuit by the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) to free a chimp named Tommy from captivity. The group had argued that the chimpanzee deserved the human right of bodily liberty.
โThe court nailed it,โ writes Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and a noted opponent of personhood for animals, in an e-mail to Science. โThe decision directly addressed the arguments for nonhuman animal legal personhood, and demonstrated clearly why they are wrong.โ
The courtโs decision is the latest setback for NhRP, an animal rights group that has been trying to free four New York chimpanzeesโincluding two research chimpsโsince 2013. Two of the animalsโTommy and Kikoโlive in cages on private property, according to the group. The other twoโHercules and Leoโare lab chimps at Stony Brook University.
In each case, NhRP filed a writ of habeas corpus, which allows a person being held captive to have a say in court. Lower courts rejected the lawsuits late last year, but NhRP appealed, andย the first of those appealsโinvolving Tommyโwas heard this October. The group hopes to eventually extend its argument about the right to bodily liberty to a variety of other animals.
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In todayโs decision, the court states that chimpanzees, although cognitively complex, arenโt entitled to the same legal status as human beings. โ[We] conclude that a chimpanzee is not a โpersonโ entitled to the rights and protections afforded by the writ of habeas corpus,โ the judges write. Only people can have rights, the court states, because only people can be held legally accountable for their actions. โIn our view, it is this incapability to bear any legal responsibilities and societal duties that renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights โฆ that have been afforded to human beings.โ
Instead of trying to grant rights to chimpanzees, the court notes that NhRP could push for further legal protections for the animals, perhaps by advocating for stricter state animal welfare laws.
Read full, original article: Chimpanzee ‘personhood’ fails on appeal
