Great Ape Project

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The Great Ape Project (GAP) is an international initiative behind the idea is, certain fundamental rights that currently the people are reserved for the other members of the family of hominids ( great apes (English) Great Apes ) - that chimpanzees , gorillas and orangutans - to demand, including the right to life and the protection of individual freedom.

history

The GAP goes back to the 1993 book Human Rights for the Great Apes - The Great Ape Project (original title: The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity ), which was edited by the philosophers Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer . It includes contributions from 34 authors, including Jane Goodall , Jared Diamond, and Richard Dawkins . After the initial surge in the 1990s, numerous working groups on the CAP gradually disbanded. Following the award of the Ethics Prize 2011 by the Giordano Bruno Foundation to Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer, the GAP was restarted in Germany. The relaunch is coordinated by the psychologist Colin Goldner , supported by scientists such as Volker Sommer , Dieter Birnbacher and Michael Schmidt-Salomon .

There are now working groups (chapters) in 10 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cote d'Ivoire, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Spain and Uruguay, including several sanctuaries for apes in distress in Brazil and one Reception center in England.

Goals and reasoning

The book Human Rights for the Great Apes begins with a declaration about the Great Apes, which defines the goals of the Great Ape Project:

“We demand that the community of equals be expanded to include all great apes: humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The "community of equals" is the moral community within which we recognize certain moral principles or rights that regulate our relationships with one another and are legally enforceable. "

These rights or principles include the right to life , the protection of individual freedom, and the prohibition of torture .

The aim of the GAP is to overcome the animal-human boundary, since it is biologically and thus ethically wrong at the same time. The evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond argues that the genetic makeup of chimpanzees and bonobos is 98.4 percent the same as that of humans and that even blood transfusions are possible between humans and the great apes . In the opinion of the authors, it is not the membership of a species, but the degree of self-consciousness or the status as a person (singer) that determines how we view and treat animals.

Since the great apes share a similar feeling and thinking ability as well as a similar social behavior with humans, they should be included in the human moral community and not be left out as animals. This similarity of the human species to the other primates could be observed since Charles Darwin's research, for example in the different emotions that would appear in great apes in facial expressions similar to humans. A conversation with them using sign language is also possible. Since the similarity between humans and great apes cannot be denied, they should not be deprived of basic human rights. However, the authors disagree as to whether the CAP should only be viewed as a first step towards extending elementary rights to other animals. This is what Peter Singer calls for in Animal Liberation. The liberation of animals to grant animal rights to all sentient animals. This view is not shared by all fellow campaigners of the CAP; for some it is sufficient to include the great apes in ethics and jurisprudence.

influence

Partly due to the influence of the CAP, New Zealand changed the legal protection of non-human hominids in the Animal Welfare Act in 1999. According to this, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos may only be used in experiments in New Zealand if the results benefit the monkeys themselves or their species. New Zealand jurisprudence followed the insight that the “increased cognitive and emotional abilities of the great apes” required a redefinition of their moral and legal status. The autonomous Spanish regional authority of the Balearic Islands passed a similar legal regulation.

In June 2008, the Committee on Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries of the Spanish Parliament, Cortes Generales , spoke out in favor of granting greater rights to the species of great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) and supporting the CAP. The Spanish government under the then Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero was asked to campaign for a declaration in the European Union and to pass a law within a year that bans potentially harmful animal experiments on great apes. The keeping of great apes in captivity should only be allowed for the purpose of species conservation. It was also recommended that steps be taken in international forums and organizations to protect great apes from abuse, slavery, torture, killing and extermination.

In 2014, GAP Germany started a parliamentary initiative with the aim of anchoring the required basic rights for great apes in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany (in addition to GG Art 20a), but this did not succeed.

Referring to the demands of the GAP, at the end of 2014 an Argentine court granted an orangutan in the Buenos Aires Zoo basic personal rights. At the end of 2016, another Argentine court granted comparable basic rights to a chimpanzee

Awards

  • Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer were awarded the Ethics Prize of the Giordano Bruno Foundation in 2011 for their commitment to the Great Ape Project.
  • The study by Colin Goldner Lifelong Behind Bars: The Truth About Gorilla, Orang Utan & Co in German Zoos was nominated for the choice of Knowledge Book of the Year 2014 and came second in the final in the category of explosives .

literature

  • Paola Cavalieri, Peter Singer (ed.): Human rights for the great apes - The Great Ape Project . Munich 1994 (London 1993), ISBN 3-44230-613-2
  • Ethics Prize 2011: Basic rights for great apes. Speeches by Paola Cavalieri, Colin Goldner, Peter Singer, Michael Schmidt-Salomon and Volker Sommer, series of the Giordano Bruno Foundation, Volume 4. Alibri Verlag, Aschaffenburg 2012. ISBN 978-3-86569-203-0
  • Colin Goldner: Life behind bars - The truth about gorillas, orangutans & Co in German zoos . Alibri Verlag, Aschaffenburg 2014. ISBN 978-3-86569-112-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Humanistic press service : Great Ape Project relaunched , June 14, 2011
  2. ^ Cavalieri / Singer: Human rights for the great apes , section foreword
  3. ↑ Die Zeit : The Dignity of the Ape , November 11, 1999
  4. ↑ Der Tagesspiegel : Spain demands basic rights for monkeys , June 27, 2008
  5. ↑ Die Weltwoche : Some monkeys are right . Edition 32/2008
  6. ↑ Parliamentary initiative : https://www.giordano-bruno-stiftung.de/sites/default/files/download/3_petition51830_chronologie.pdf
  7. ↑ Basic personal rights 1 : https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/orang-utan-sandra-tierschuetzer-erstreiten-freilassung-nach-20-jahren-a-1009863.html
  8. ↑ Basic personal rights 2 : http://www.nonhumanrights.org/content/uploads/2016/12/Chimpanzee-Cecilia_translation-FINAL-for-website.pdf
  9. ↑ hpd: Life behind bars reached second place, in: Humanistischer Pressedienst, November 26, 2014.