Great Ape Personhood Information
Writers Carol Adams • Jeremy Bentham Steven Best • Stephen Clark Gary Francione • Robert Garner Gill Langley • Andrew Linzey Mary Midgley • Tom Regan Bernard Rollin • Richard Ryder Henry Salt • Peter Singer Steven Wise • Roger Yates
Activists Greg Avery • David Barbarash Mel Broughton • Rod Coronado Barry Horne • Ronnie Lee Keith Mann • Ingrid Newkirk Heather Nicholson • Jill Phipps Craig Rosebraugh • Henry Spira Andrew Tyler • Jerry Vlasak Paul Watson • Robin Webb
Groups/campaigns List of animal rights groups Animal Aid • ALDF • ALF • Animal Liberation Press Office • ARM BUAV • GAP Hunt Saboteurs • PETA • PCRM Sea Shepherd • SPEAK • SHAC
Political parties List of animal advocacy parties Animal Alliance • Animals Count Animal Protection Party PACMA Party for the Animals Tierschutzpartei
Issues Animal liberation movement Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act Animal law • Animal testing Bile bear • Blood sport Covance • Draize test Factory farming • Fur trade Great Ape research ban • HLS Lab animal sources • LD50 Meat • Nafovanny • Open rescue Operation Backfire • Primate trade Seal hunting • Speciesism
Cases Britches • Brown Dog affair Cambridge • Pit of despair Silver Spring monkeys Unnecessary Fuss
Films Animal rights films Behind the Mask • Earthlings The Animals Film Peaceable Kingdom • Unnecessary Fuss
Books and magazines AR books • AR magazines Animal Liberation Arkangel • Bite Back No Compromise
Related categories Category:Animal law ALF • Category:Animal rights AR movement Animal testing
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Great ape personhood is a movement to create legal recognition of bonobos, common chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans (the non-human great apes) as bona fide persons.
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First steps
On February 28, 2007 the parliament of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous province of Spain, passed the world's first legislation that would effectively grant legal personhood rights to all great apes.[1] The act sent ripples out of the region and across Spain, producing public support for the rights of great apes. On June 25, 2008 a parliamentary committee set forth resolutions urging Spain to grant the primates the rights 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." [2]
These precedents followed years of European legal efforts. In 1992, Switzerland amended its constitution to recognize animals as beings and not things.[3] However, in 1999 the Swiss constitution was completely rewritten. A decade later, Germany guaranteed rights to animals in a 2002 amendment to its constitution, becoming the first European Union member to do so.[3][4][5]
New Zealand granted basic rights to five great ape species in 1999. Their use is now forbidden in research, testing, or teaching.[6]
Stances
Advocacy
Well-known advocates are primatologist Jane Goodall, appointed a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations to fight the bushmeat trade and end ape extinction;[7] Richard Dawkins, former Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University;[8] Peter Singer, professor of philosophy at Princeton University;[9] and attorney and former Harvard professor Steven Wise.[10]
Goodall's longitudinal studies revealed the social and family life of chimps to be very similar to that of human beings in some respects. She herself calls them individuals, and says they relate to her as an individual member of the clan. Laboratory studies of ape language ability began to reveal other human traits, as did genetics, and eventually three of the great apes were reclassified as hominids.
This, plus rising ape extinction and the animal rights movement has put pressure on nations to recognize apes as having limited rights and being legal "persons." In response, the United Kingdom introduced a ban on research using great apes, although testing on other primates has not been limited.[11]
Writer and lecturer, Thomas Rose, makes the argument that granting legal rights afforded to humans to non-humans is nothing new. He points out that in the majority 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."[1] Dawn Prince-Hughes has written that great apes meet all the standards set out 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 for empathy, and the ability to think abstractly."[12]
Criticism
Gary Francione, while an animal rights advocate, criticizes the concept of granting personhood because the animal in question is human-like, and argues instead that sentience is the only characteristic a being requires to have basic rights. [13]
Interpretation
Depending on the precise wording of any proposed or adopted declaration, personhood for the Great Apes may raise questions concerning protections and obligations under national and international laws, such as:
- Articles 7–29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- The 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness regarding nationality and citizenship for persons
- Provisions 4 & 5 of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child
- Conscription and other mandatory national service laws written for persons
See also
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References
- ^ a b Thomas Rose (2007-08-02). "Going ape over human rights". CBC News. http://web.archive.org/web/20100203225450/http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_rose/20070802.html. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
- ^ "Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes". Reuters. 2008-06-25. http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL256586320080625. Retrieved 2008-07-11.
- ^ a b "Germany guarantees animal rights in constitution". Associated Press. 2002-05-18. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/05/18/germany-rights.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
- ^ "Germany guarantees animal rights". CNN. 2002-06-21. http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/06/21/germany.animals/index.html. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
- ^ Kate Connolly (2002-06-22). "German animals given legal rights". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jun/22/germany.animalwelfarel. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
- ^ "A STEP AT A TIME: NEW ZEALAND’S PROGRESS TOWARD HOMINID RIGHTS" BY ROWAN TAYLOR
- ^ Goodall, Jane in Cavalieri, Paola & Singer, Peter. (eds.) The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity. St Martin's Griffin, 1994.
- ^ Dawkins, Richard. "Gaps in the Mind" in Cavalieri, Paola & Singer, Peter. (eds.) The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity. St Martin's Griffin, 1994.
- ^ Cavalieri, Paola & Singer, Peter. (eds.) The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity. St Martin's Griffin, 1994.
- ^ Motavalli, Jim. "Rights from Wrongs. A Movement to Grant Legal Protection to Animals is Gathering Force", E Magazine, March/April 2003.
- ^ Alok Jha (2005-12-05). "RSPCA outrage as experiments on animals rise to 2.85m". The Guardian. http://education.guardian.co.uk/businessofresearch/story/0,,1663535,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
- ^ Prince-Hughes, Dawn (1987). Songs of the Gorilla Nation. Harmony. p. 138. ISBN 1-4000-5058-8.
- ^ Francione, Gary (2006). The Great Ape Project: Not so Great. http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/the-great-ape-project-not-so-great/. Retrieved 2010-03-22.
External links
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