The debate carried out in the Supreme Court of New York about the right of two chimpanzees – Hercules and Leo – to live free with their peers in a sanctuary in Florida, instead of being kept in cages for a lifetime in a biomedical experimentation center at Stony Brook University, can finish in the US recognition of the basic rights of the Great Apes.

Judge Barbara Jaffe accepted temporarily the writ of a Habeas Corpus filed on behalf of the chimpanzees by the Organization Nonhuman Rights Project in temporarily, prompting the university to rule and justify the need to maintain both innocent chimpanzees as prisoners.

The representative of Nonhuman Rights Project, Natalie K.Prosin, said: “”This is a big step forward to getting what we are ultimately seeking: The right to bodily liberty for chimpanzees and other cognitively complex animals. We got our foot in the door. And no matter what happens, that door can never be completely shut again.”

While this happens in New York,  at the other side of America, in the city of Mendoza, Argentina, another judge, Maria Alejandra Mauricio, also opened the door to a chimpanzee who are at risk of dying of loneliness to be released via another Habeas Corpus , accepted in a first evaluation, which will generate a global jurisprudence on the Rights of the Nonhuman People Human must have in our societies.

The next few weeks may be very important in the achievement of the Legal Personality of Great Apes on Planet Earth.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

President, GAP Project International