CHIMPANZEES AT THE SUPREME COURT (2)
Animals do not have legal rights, argues Sonnie Ekwowusi BEYOND BEING GUARANTEED THE RIGHT TO BE FREE FROM PHYSICAL ABUSE AND OTHER MISTREATMENT, CHIMPANZEES, APES AND THE SO-CALLED INTELLIGENT ANIMALS DO NOT ENJOY LEGAL PERSONHOOD
It is worthy of note that the Universal Declaration on Animal Rights 1978, Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare, some international treaties, conventions, protocols, and some countries’ municipal laws have accorded certain rights to animals in order to respect the environment and treat animals with dignity and respect as Pope Francis is urging in his Encyclical, Laudato Si. Specifically, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration on Animal Rights 1978 stipulates that “all animals have equal rights to exist within the context of biological equilibrium....”; Article 6 states that “experiments on animals entailing physical or psychological suffering violate the rights of animals...” while Article 8 states that “the massacre of wild animals, and the pollution and destruction of biotopes” constitute animal genocide.
In Nigeria, sections 20 and 44(2)(f) of the 1999 Constitution, sections 450, 456 of the Criminal Code, the National Environmental Standard Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Act and other Nigerian laws frown at the abuse and maltreatment of animals. In fact, Section 7(c) of the act mandates the agency to enforce compliance with the provisions of international agreements, protocols, conventions and treaties on the maltreatment of animal and use of the environment.
But granting animal rights from physical abuse and from unnecessary maltreatment, torture and extermination as adumbrated above is completely different from granting legal personhood to animals. Steven Wise Esq. and other animal rights advocates passionately argue that legal personhood should be granted to chimpanzees, apes and the so-called intelligent animals on the ground that even though they are “non-human persons” they have rights, duties and obligations that things do not have under the law. This is flawed. A human person is a man or woman created by God in his image and likeness and endowed with will and intelligence. It is settled law that legal persons are either natural persons (that is, human beings or human persons) or artificial persons (that is, body corporate, limited liability companies, partnerships, registered non-governmental organisations and other juristic entities) who can sue and be sued in their names and who are capable of exercising legal rights, duties and obligations under the law. Animals do not have these legal attributes. Therefore I agree with Justice Jaffe that “beyond being guaranteed the right to be free from physical abuse and other mistreatment,” Chimpanzees, apes and the so-called intelligent animals do not enjoy legal personhood.
However the prediction of Justice Jaffe of the New York Supreme Court merits a deeper reflection. Justice Jaffe predicts in his judgment that even though attempts to extend legal personhood to animals may not succeed today it might succeed in the future. This is definitely a good prediction. One of the consequences of the questioning of the anthropological configuration of man and woman in this epoch is the erasing or blurring of the essential differences between a human being and an animal. Today in many western cultures man is equated with an animal. Man is depicted as one more animal without any higher destiny; without selfcontrol and without any supernatural end. He is also depicted as a beast of pleasure that merely exist today to only satisfy the sensual appetites and dies tomorrow.
In her article, Pro-Animal, Pro-life, Mary Eberstadt writes that following Jeremy Bentham and other utilitarians, Peter Singer forcefully argues in his book, Animal Liberation, that the capacity to suffer is “the vital characteristic that gives a being a right to equal consideration”. In other words, since animals also suffer like human beings they should enjoy the same rights with human beings. According to Singer, “in short, when properly understood, animals have rights of the same sorts as humans-and in some cases, depending on the state of sentience, rights that trump those of certain humans… there will be some non-human animals whose lives, by any standards, are more valuable than the lives of some humans.”
Some think that somehow Nigeria is immuned from all these absurd ideas we come across in America and other places abroad. They forget that we now live in a global village that is out to forge one global behaviour and attitude for all irrespective of cultural and religious differences. They forget that America has a strong influence on the rest of the world and that anything that happens in the U.S is easily exported across the world. For example, gay cartoons targeted at kids below age six are currently being exported from the U.S to the rest of the world including Nigeria. Why? To expose them to gay cartoons and gay movies early in life so that when they grow up they will not find anything wrong with gay practices. Now, if for any reason the American Supreme Court wakes up one day and rules that Chimpanzees, apes and so-called other intelligent animals are legal persons sharing the same rights, duties and obligations with human beings under the law, it will become another legal precedent capable of being exported to Nigeria. And if exported to Nigeria and later embraced as part of the Nigerian law, the owners of dogs, goats, sheep, rams, fowls and other animals in Nigeria would not be allowed to kill them and eat them as meat. No rams will be killed during Sallah. No goats and fowls will be killed at Christmas. No animals would be kept in the Zoo. No dogs in Calabar.