Do Chimps Have Human Rights?

A chimp named Tommy, currently living with Patrick and Diane Lavery in New York as their pet, is cognitively similar to humans and therefore should have similar rights, an animal rights group has claimed in a lawsuit. In a move modeled on an important 1772 precedent involving an escaped American slave recaptured in London,The Nonhuman Rights Project filed a writ of habeas corpus – historically used to demand a captor explain why he has a right to detain a captive – with the New York Supreme Court. The animal rights group claims that, in their eyes, 26-year-old Tommy is being enslaved, and chimpanzees’ cognitive abilities such as self-determination, awareness of past, and ability to make choices, are “sufficient to establish common law personhood and the consequential fundamental right to bodily liberty.”