Chimps in research units deserve the same legal protection as detainees, says lawyer Steven Wise – and a US court seems to agree

“We filed a petition under a habeas corpus statute, which is usually used to determine if detention is lawful”

You’ve been granted a groundbreaking court order that means Stony Brook University in New York has to legally justify keeping two research chimpanzees. What happened?

We filed a petition under a habeas corpus statute, which is usually used to bring a prisoner or detainee before a court to determine if detention is lawful. For the first time, a judge has ordered someone detaining chimpanzees to come to court and argue that it is legal. The arguments will hinge upon whether two chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, are entitled to legal personhood rather than being viewed as legal things.

Why these two chimpanzees?

Hercules and Leo are young males being used by the anatomy department to study the evolution of locomotion. Both, we believe, are being held indoors. That goes against the US National Institutes of Health’s guidelines that the few chimpanzees that remain in research are to be kept in groups of not fewer than seven, a mix of males and females, in a natural-like environment.

Why not fight that using animal welfare law?

Animal welfare statutes don’t work in the US. A legal person, on the other hand, is highly visible to the courts. The difference between being a legal person and being a legal thing is profound. A legal thing is more or less invisible to judges; they don’t have inherent rights. They are only important to the degree that they are important to a legal person. They are essentially slaves.


Would such a ruling grant human rights to chimpanzees?

No. We are looking for chimpanzee rights for chimpanzees, looking to understand what the most fundamental interests of chimpanzees are and giving them rights to protect those interests.

Why do chimps deserve legal personhood?

They have been studied for well over half a century, in the wild and in captivity. The findings only go one way – chimpanzees are extraordinarily complex cognitive beings with minds that are startlingly close to ours. More importantly for our argument, they are autonomous and self-determining, not just bound by instinct. It is also clear that they are autonomous in a way that is very familiar to us as human beings. Courts have shown the utmost respect for autonomy. For example, if someone rejects medical treatment, the court respects their right to autonomy, their right to die. Autonomy is of supreme value.

Surely there are no rights without responsibilities?

We have no problems giving rights without responsibilities to millions of humans, for example if they are insane or just very young.

Do you sense victory for your arguments at the hearing on 27 May?

This is the first time we have got this far. We are in new territory. So it’s hard to say what will happen. We will eventually prevail – it’s just a matter of time – but I don’t know how long it will take.

Profile Steven Wise heads the Nonhuman Rights Project and has practised animal protection law for 35 years. He has taught animal rights law at universities including Harvard and is the author of books such as Rattling The Cage (Basic Books)

This article appeared in print under the headline “Habeas corpus for chimps”

The title of this article has been changed since it was first published on 6 May 2015.