Argentina Judge Rules Chimpanzee Has “Non-Human Rights”

Thirty-year-old Chimpanzee Cecilia will be moved from a concrete enclosure in an Argentinian zoo to a wildlife sanctuary in Brazil after a judge ruled that chimpanzees have “non-human rights.” Forging new law outside of the Argentinian civil code, Judge Maria Alejandro Mauricio concluded that chimpanzees have their “own rights to development, to life in their natural habitat.”

In 2015, an Argentinian judge ruled that twenty-nine-year-old orangutan Sandra had basic rights of “personhood” and ordered that she be removed from from a Buenos Aires zoo and sent to a wildlife sanctuary.

For further reading, see:

Marc Walker, The Mirror, “Judge Order Chimp to be Freed from Zoo Enclosure After Ruling the Animal has ‘Non-Human Rights,’ ” Nov. 7, 2016, available at: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/judge-orders-chimp-freed-zoo-9213614

#November2016 #chimpanzee #animalrights