The Rights of Apes – and Humans
On June 25, in a historic vote, a Spanish parliamentary commission declared its support for The Great Ape Project, a proposal to grant rights to life, liberty, and protection from torture to our closest nonhuman relatives. In Austria, meanwhile, the authorities were arresting law-abiding animal-rights advocates in the middle of the night – and continue to detain them without charge.
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MELBOURNE – On June 25, in a historic vote, the Spanish parliament’s Commission for the Environment, Agriculture, and Fisheries declared its support for The Great Ape Project, a proposal to grant rights to life, liberty, and protection from torture to our closest nonhuman relatives: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. Other countries, such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom, have taken steps to protect great apes from harmful experimentation, but no national parliament has declared that any animal could be a person with rights.