A growing number of people across the world are attempting to persuade governments to grant great apes rudimentary ‘human rights’. They argue that great apes are enough like us to deserve special treatment over other animals. The campaign has gathered momentum over the past few years and is stirring up a good deal of controversy. Various religious groups and the human rights charity, Amnesty International, point out that we have a long way to go to secure rights for humans before we start thinking about animals. Other critics argue that the proposal is not radical enough and should be extended to other intelligent social animals such as elephants and dolphins, and potentially to all animals.
The Great Ape Project (GAP) is an international organisation that has been lobbying for legal rights for apes since 1993. The project has had some degree of success. New Zealand considered the possibility of extending human rights to great apes in 1999 as part of its new animal welfare bill. In the end, the bill did not go as far as granting apes individual legal rights, but did give them special status. Testing or teaching involving apes now requires government approval and must demonstrate that any likely benefits are not outweighed by harm to the individual animal. In effect that means no biomedical testing, only studies that increase our understanding of these species. The practice of using apes in biomedical research has also effectively ended in Europe now. So with all this legal protection in place, what’s the big deal about individual rights? GAP campaigners say that these regulations don’t go far enough and they still allow people who own great apes to lawfully neglect their needs. Michele Stumpe, a lawyer based in the US, points out that without rights, animals are mere property and their owners have no obligation to consider their best interests. Legally, however, only ‘persons’ can have ‘rights’, which is why the law needs to be changed to recognise the ‘personhood’ of apes.
Stumpe says that one reason for the resistance is the use of terms like ‘rights’ and personhood’. It seems like a radical idea and that scares people, but when we talk about rights, it really just means protection in layman’s terms,’ she says. For the philosopher Peter Singer (Princeton University), the opposition runs deeper than just semantics. He says the great apes are ‘the victims of arbitrary discrimination’, or what he calls ‘speciesism’. He makes an argument on moral grounds for extending human rights to all beings that show intelligence and awareness – including some level of self-awareness – and have emotional and social needs. That means going beyond the boundaries of our own species – and therein lies the problem. ‘It’s that gulf between humans and animals that people want to maintain,’ he says. Others take a similar view. It requires a radical shift in people’s ideas about themselves, according to Ian Redmond, chief consultant for the UN Great Apes Survival Project. Gary Francione, a leading animal-rights lawyer from Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and a member of the original GAP group, calls it ‘spiritual superiority. ‘We just think we’re special because we’re human.’
Those less sympathetic to the animal rights agenda see things rather differently. Some argue that beyond the species barrier lies a slippery slope. ‘Mice share around 90 per cent of human DNA: should they get 90 per cent of human rights?’ asks geneticist Steve Jones from University College, London. He is concerned that giving rights to great apes would be the beginning of the end of all research with animals. Singer accepts that there is a question about where you draw the line, but sees no reason for that to stop society from taking the first step. ‘The strongest and clearest case is with great apes, but we’re open to arguments that it could be extended to other mammals,’ he says.
Some take it even further. Francione no longer supports the idea of extending rights to great apes on the basis that their minds are like ours. Instead, he argues that all sentient beings should have just one right: the right not to be treated as the property of humans. He believes his approach has the advantage of simplicity, because sentience – the ability to feel pain or distress – is an objective quality, and because it would bring an end to captive animals altogether. It would make it illegal to breed any animals, including agricultural animals and even pets, his ideas highlight a logical inconsistency at the heart of the GAP agenda: it seeks to give legal rights to animals but does not give them the right to be free. Francione’s approach is certainly several steps too far for many people.
It is not clear what GAP’s proposals mean for wild apes, and even some of the animals’ most outspoken defenders are not convinced that giving them human rights is the best way to protect them. Primatologist Frans de Waal, from the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, US, says ‘The concept of rights applies only to those capable of carrying responsibilities within our society.’ He believes the emphasis should be on the obligations humans have towards other animals, both for their care and for their conservation.
Redmond, on the other hand, suggests that applying GAP principles to wild populations might lead to increased penalties for killing apes or even give them land rights, though he admits the latter is unlikely. At the very least, an increased regard for the well-being of apes among people in western countries would lead to a decreased demand for animals being kidnapped from the wild and then exported to zoos, wildlife parks or private collectors.
The Great Ape Project (GAP) is an international organisation that has been lobbying for legal rights for apes since 1993. The project has had some degree of success. New Zealand considered the possibility of extending human rights to great apes in 1999 as part of its new animal welfare bill. In the end, the bill did not go as far as granting apes individual legal rights, but did give them special status. Testing or teaching involving apes now requires government approval and must demonstrate that any likely benefits are not outweighed by harm to the individual animal. In effect that means no biomedical testing, only studies that increase our understanding of these species. The practice of using apes in biomedical research has also effectively ended in Europe now. So with all this legal protection in place, what’s the big deal about individual rights? GAP campaigners say that these regulations don’t go far enough and they still allow people who own great apes to lawfully neglect their needs. Michele Stumpe, a lawyer based in the US, points out that without rights, animals are mere property and their owners have no obligation to consider their best interests. Legally, however, only ‘persons’ can have ‘rights’, which is why the law needs to be changed to recognise the ‘personhood’ of apes.
Stumpe says that one reason for the resistance is the use of terms like ‘rights’ and personhood’. It seems like a radical idea and that scares people, but when we talk about rights, it really just means protection in layman’s terms,’ she says. For the philosopher Peter Singer (Princeton University), the opposition runs deeper than just semantics. He says the great apes are ‘the victims of arbitrary discrimination’, or what he calls ‘speciesism’. He makes an argument on moral grounds for extending human rights to all beings that show intelligence and awareness – including some level of self-awareness – and have emotional and social needs. That means going beyond the boundaries of our own species – and therein lies the problem. ‘It’s that gulf between humans and animals that people want to maintain,’ he says. Others take a similar view. It requires a radical shift in people’s ideas about themselves, according to Ian Redmond, chief consultant for the UN Great Apes Survival Project. Gary Francione, a leading animal-rights lawyer from Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and a member of the original GAP group, calls it ‘spiritual superiority. ‘We just think we’re special because we’re human.’
Those less sympathetic to the animal rights agenda see things rather differently. Some argue that beyond the species barrier lies a slippery slope. ‘Mice share around 90 per cent of human DNA: should they get 90 per cent of human rights?’ asks geneticist Steve Jones from University College, London. He is concerned that giving rights to great apes would be the beginning of the end of all research with animals. Singer accepts that there is a question about where you draw the line, but sees no reason for that to stop society from taking the first step. ‘The strongest and clearest case is with great apes, but we’re open to arguments that it could be extended to other mammals,’ he says.
Some take it even further. Francione no longer supports the idea of extending rights to great apes on the basis that their minds are like ours. Instead, he argues that all sentient beings should have just one right: the right not to be treated as the property of humans. He believes his approach has the advantage of simplicity, because sentience – the ability to feel pain or distress – is an objective quality, and because it would bring an end to captive animals altogether. It would make it illegal to breed any animals, including agricultural animals and even pets, his ideas highlight a logical inconsistency at the heart of the GAP agenda: it seeks to give legal rights to animals but does not give them the right to be free. Francione’s approach is certainly several steps too far for many people.
It is not clear what GAP’s proposals mean for wild apes, and even some of the animals’ most outspoken defenders are not convinced that giving them human rights is the best way to protect them. Primatologist Frans de Waal, from the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, US, says ‘The concept of rights applies only to those capable of carrying responsibilities within our society.’ He believes the emphasis should be on the obligations humans have towards other animals, both for their care and for their conservation.
Redmond, on the other hand, suggests that applying GAP principles to wild populations might lead to increased penalties for killing apes or even give them land rights, though he admits the latter is unlikely. At the very least, an increased regard for the well-being of apes among people in western countries would lead to a decreased demand for animals being kidnapped from the wild and then exported to zoos, wildlife parks or private collectors.