With the development of legal systems and the end of the Second World War, human beings pay more and more attention to their undeniable rights. Many struggles have done in order to achieve the equality of human rights and to against the violence of them within humans. However, whether human rights only belongs to human beings is a controversial issue. There are various opinions about if chimpanzees, which are the most complex non-human animals(Waldau & Whitman, 2002), also deserve human rights. This paper would argue that chimpanzees should be granted some of the basic human rights. Firstly, the content of existing human rights would be introduced. Secondly, chimpanzees’ right to not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, and the right of liberty would be justified. Lastly, the article would discuss whether the fact that chimpanzees cannot take any responsibility for their action can prevent them from having the two human rights depicted above. …show more content…
However, it is unclear that whether these rights can only be obtained by humans. Clearly, some of these rights only belongs to humans because they require complicated cultural or religious system (e.g. Article 18), or organized, developed and controlled society (e.g. Article 21) to operate. Nevertheless, there are some other basic human rights which can also be applied to higher animals like chimpanzees. In the following two paragraphs, the qualification of chimpanzees to have the right to not being tortured or brutalized and the right of liberty would be