Spain is about to take the world into uncharted legal territory. Later this month, a resolution is going before parliament which, if passed as expected, will give a set of rights to chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans. These great apes will then be regarded in Spanish law as "legal persons."
It will be of historic significance, the first time that any civilization has recognized the special status of another species and the need to protect it not only from extinction but also from individual abuse. Spain will be obliged to introduce new laws protecting the great apes, putting pressure on other European countries to follow suit, and will undertake to organize a forum of rich nations to fund the protection of the great apes in their natural habitat.
The resolution is based on the work of the Great Ape Project, which was founded in 1993 by philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri. It urges the government in Spain to take the necessary measures in international forums and organizations to protect great apes from maltreatment, slavery, torture, death and extinction.
The central idea of the project is that the great apes share more than just DNA with humans. There is an enormous amount of data collected by scientists, including Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey and Birute Galdikas, that the great apes are intelligent beings with strong emotions that often resemble our own.
Singer and Cavalieri have presented a radical vision that has on occasion been widely misinterpreted. This is not a call for human rights to be accorded to the great apes, they say, and it will not result in the release of captive great apes into the wild. It is rather a recognition of their undeniable similarity to humans and a rejection of the notion that these animals can be considered property, with no more legal significance than an item of furniture.
"There is no sound moral reason why possession of basic rights should be limited to members of a particular species," Singer said.
Spain is on the surface an unlikely country to be taking such a radical step towards recognizing the rights of animals -- after all, bull fighting is still considered a sport. Some philosophers believe that a deadly attack on humans might have been one of the motivations behind its move to recognize the rights of apes.
The Madrid bombings on March 11, 2004, which killed 192 people and injured more than 2,000, they say, forced a radical rethink within society.
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
DETERRENCE: Along with US$500 million in military aid and up to US$2 billion in loans and loan guarantees, the bill would allocate US$400 million to countering PRC influence The US House of Representatives on Friday approved an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2025 that includes US$500 million in military aid for Taiwan. The legislation, which authorizes funding for the US Department of State, US foreign operations and related programs for next year, passed 212-200 in the Republican-led House. The bill stipulates that the US would provide no less than US$500 million in foreign military financing for Taiwan to enhance deterrence across the Taiwan Strait, and offer Taipei up to US$2 billion in loans and loan guarantees for the same purpose. The funding would be made available under the US’ Foreign Military