Should chimps have rights? An animal rights group wants chimps to be recognized as "legal persons".

• Author: Majerol, Veronica
• Position: NATIONAL

Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp, lives in a small cement cage in a used-trailer sales lot in Gloversville, New York. Retired from movie work and whatever else once occupied him, he has no chimp friends to keep him company--just a TV.

Tommy is worlds away from the rainforests of Western Africa, where chimps spend most of their lives in trees, sleeping, hunting, and socializing together.

His owner hasn't broken any laws, but a Boston-based group called the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is trying to change how the law views chimps like Tommy. The group says chimps have such a humanlike intelligence that they should be recognized as "legal persons"--a prerequisite for having rights. NhRP has asked a judge to order the release of Tommy and three other captive chimps so they can be placed in an animal sanctuary and roam free.

"Chimpanzees are perhaps the most autonomous beings in the universe after us human beings," says Steven Wise, NhRP's president. "We argue that judges should value them and view them as legal persons the way they value us and view us as legal persons."

Habeas Corpus Petitions

You've probably heard the term "animal rights," but animals don't actually have rights in the U.S. (or any other country). Federal and state animal-welfare laws punish people who mistreat or neglect animals, but that's not the same as chimps having a right to liberty or anything else.

NhRP's first step was filing writs of habeas corpus--petitions that ask a judge to end someone's unjust detention--on behalf of Tommy and the three other privately owned chimps in New York. (Two are in university research labs and one is in a private home.) The legal strategy is unusual because writs of habeas corpus are usually filed for people, not animals; but NhRP thinks it has the best odds of winning rights for chimps this way since judges ruling on habeas corpus petitions often have flexibility to rely on what they think is morally right in addition to existing law.

Judges have denied NhRP's initial petitions, but the group plans to appeal as it prepares lawsuits in other states. If an appellate court decides to recognize chimps as legal persons*, NhRP's next step would be arguing for what rights the chimps should be granted.

"The right that we believe they should have most of all is the right to bodily liberty," says Wise. "They should be able to . . . choose how to live their lives the way we choose how to live our lives."

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