Sorry if my question was weird.

And no, I am not some human’s pet that just became intelligent and took over their Lemmy account. 😺

  • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.mlEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    Yes, absolutely they should have rights.

    In some countries (like France, iirc), chimps are recognized as having civil rights. They don’t have identical rights to humans of course. They don’t have the same rights as a human, but they are recognized as having rights as individuals.

    Although the US hasn’t recognized that, yet, it has effectively banned chimpanzee research. You basically cannot get funded for chimpanzee research unless you a) demonstrate they are necessary for the research and b) you pass a review board similar to a human subjects review board who are charged with maintaining ethical research standards. I don’t do primate research, so I’m not sure of all of the details, but with human subjects boards you have to show that not only does your research. avoid harming humans, the subjects themselves must benefit from your work, if it is health related. When the new rules were passed, most research chimps were retired to preserves

    So if there was a l other animal with fully human intelligence, there’s legal precedent to recognize that they have inherent dignity and rights.

      • richieadler@lemmy.myserv.oneEnglish
        31·
        1 year ago

        And they haven’t signed the International Declaration of Human Rights. Apparently declaring work and housing as human rights “goes too far”.

        • WtfEvenIsExistence2️@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
          11·
          1 year ago

          No country opposed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Every country that was a UN member at the time either voted in favor of it, or abstained because they believed it didn’t go far enough to include denying human rights to nazis and fascists.

          Although, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself isn’t legally binding. It’s just a joint statement by UN members declaring what is considered human rights. It’s not like a violation of International Laws if they just ignore what they said. (Even if it were an international law, who’s gonna enforce it?)

          The Third General Assembly adopted the Declaration just before midnight on December 10, 1948 with a vote of 48 to zero and eight abstentions. The abstentions came from the USSR, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UKSSR), the BSSR, Yugoslavia, Poland, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

          The Six Communist Abstentions

          The Communist abstentions coalesced around the view that the Declaration did not go far enough. They had repeatedly made the point that to protect human rights adequately, the Declaration needed explicitly to condemn fascism and Nazism. Since it did not do that, they would abstain from the vote. The deep animosity that exists between Marxist egalitarianism and Nazi racism led the USSR delegation to propose amendments to what became Articles 19 and 20 stating that fascists and Nazis did not have human rights to freedom of expression and association. When those amendments were rejected, the Communists, rather than abstaining, which was their custom, voted against these articles.

          https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/udhr/udhr_general/drafting_history_10.html