File this under “simple truth affirmed by court order” — or else, “Are you smarter than Yale?”
The New York State Appellate Court handed down a decision on Thursday affirming that a chimp named “Tommy” did not have habeas corpus rights because, well, he was a chimp. Since Tommy could not speak for himself in court, he was represented by the Nonhuman Rights Project, a group that boasts it is the only one “fighting for actual LEGAL rights for members of species other than our own.” The group filed suit in NY state court on the grounds that, despite his non-human status, Tommy had common law rights and that living in a cage without being charged with a crime violated habeas corpus.
The use of animal and person as separate nouns in that sentence does imply that the two words convey different meanings. However, the Nonhuman Rights Project soldiered on, claiming that chimps “exhibit highly complex cognitive functions – such as autonomy, self-awareness and self-determination, among others – similar to those possessed by human beings.”
In its decision, the court rejected the claim that “complex cognitive functions” were the metric of humanity and wrote that, “unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions.” In short, chimps aren’t members of the body politic in quite the same way people are.
Despite its utter inanity, the case attracted scholastic attention. On Dec. 6-8, 2013, Yale University hosted an academic conference on the idea of “Personhood Beyond the Human,” an event that focused on “personhood for nonhuman animals” and aimed to “explore the evolving notions of personhood by analyzing them through the frameworks of neuroscience, behavioral science, philosophy, ethics, and law.”
The event was inspired in part by Tommy the chimp and his court case.
While the chimp couldn’t sue his way out of his cage, common law has never before been this much of a zoo.
