A fascinating series of lawsuits have been filed by the
Nonhuman Rights Project this week in various county courts across New York State. In each of the cases, the group has sued on behalf of a chimpanzee held privately within the state, under the common-law cause of action for a writ of
habeas corpus, with the ultimate aim of having the Court grant the chimpanzees “the right to bodily liberty and to order that they be [removed from their current owners and] moved to a sanctuary that’s part of the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance (NAPSA).”
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Habeas corpus is an ancient Anglo-American legal remedy, which literally means “to deliver the body”. Enshrined in Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, it is most often seen as a remedy of last resort for convicted criminals (and un-convicted persons held in government captivity, such as the Guantanamo detainees in the early 2000s). On their website the Nonhuman Rights Project describe their inspiration for the instant cases as being the 1772 English case of Mr. James Somerset. Somerset was an American slave that escaped while in London, but was recaptured and scheduled to be shipped to Jamaica, when Somerset’s godparents filed a writ of habeas corpus on his behalf. The English Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield, subsequently ruled that Somerset was, in fact, not a piece of property, but a legal person (entitled to his liberty in England at that time). While the history of liberating men from the evils of slavery is compelling, a very important distinction remains: Somerset was a human man (albeit one born into slavery), while the chimpanzees at issue in these cases are definitely not human.
Of course, I’m sure that the attorneys for the Nonhuman Rights Project have collected, and will seek to present, substantial scientific data showing the human-like consciousness of these sentient chimpanzees: capacity to learn, emotional expression, free will, etc. Interestingly, it has only been with the advances of science that collection of such objective evidence was made possible. For many years, Anglo-American law has taken a rather Judeo-Christian view on our interaction with animals: we humans are “special” and have been given “dominion over” non-humans, and so we can do whatever we like with them (short of purely sadistic torture). In which case, the Project has the rather Herculean task of not only proving certain scientific facts, but also convincing the Courts to apply the law to these facts in a remarkably new (at least non-traditional) way.
The outcome of these cases (and their certain appeals by either side) will have far-reaching consequences; not only for animals, but for all sentient beings we might find or
create. Quite serendipitously, last week I was watching some old Star Trek episodes from the 1980s, and came across one entitled “The Measure of a Man”. In that episode, the ship’s android (an extremely complex human-form computer-brained robot named Data) “sued” for the 23
rd Century equivalent of
habeas corpus to avoid being subjected to a rather dangerous experiment against his will. The Enterprise’s captain advocated on his behalf, and, in the end, the hearing officer determined that the android had all the features of human consciousness, and as such, was a sentient being; worthy of his freedom and self-determination.
The theoretical creation of robots with human-like consciousness is not that absurd considering the incredible technological advances made in just the past 20 years. Thus, the Nonhuman Rights Project’s campaign to seek acknowledgement of the rights of liberty for our nearest genetic cousins – the chimpanzees – may someday effect the liberty interests of our more distant mechanical relatives.
