Chimps have human rights too-oo-oo, rules US court
A US court has made legal history by ruling that two chimpanzees being kept for research have the same rights as humans.
The ruling paves the way for the chimps named Hercules and Leo to be moved to an animal sanctuary.
Animal rights groups hope that other animals being kept for medical research or entertainment, such as dolphins and whales at theme parks, could now be released.
The New York Supreme Court ruled that the apes can be covered by a writ of habeas corpus – the law that governs unfair detention.
Until now only a ‘legal person’ could have the writ issued on their behalf. The decision over the two apes being kept at Stony Brook University for biomedical research comes less than two years after animal rights organisation The Nonhuman Rights Project launched legal cases to try to free the apes, claiming they were being unlawfully imprisoned.
Natalie Prosin, executive director the organisation said: ‘This is a big step forward to getting what we are ultimately seeking: the right to bodily liberty for chimpanzees and other cognitively complex animals.’
The legal case began in December 2013 when the animal rights group claimed that four New York chimpanzees, including the two at Stony Brook and two others on private property, were too emotionally complex to be held in captivity and should be relocated to a sanctuary.
The case was dismissed but NhRP petitioned three lower court judges with a writ of habeas corpus. By granting the writ, the judges would have implicitly acknowledged that chimps are legal people – the first step in freeing them. They rejected it, but now the state supreme court has accepted the petition.
The ruling could have far-reaching consequences in the US, where famous chimps have included Cheetah, of the 1930s Tarzan movies, and Bubbles, who was owned by Michael Jackson in the 1980s.