Swiss Voters To Decide If Nonhuman Primates Should Have Basic Rights

Sep 27

Switzerland’s Supreme Court has made the historic decision to allow a vote on whether or not primates should be given the right to physical and mental integrity.

Animal welfare campaigners are celebrating the historic decision by Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court to allow a vote on the rights of nonhuman primates.

The electorate in the northern half-canton of Basel-City will be the first in the world to decide whether to grant primates the right to physical and mental integrity.

The groundbreaking legislation was launched by Sentience Politics, an anti-speciesist think tank founded in 2013 and based in Zurich.

The group argues that nonhuman primates are “highly complex beings, possessing an intrinsic, essential interest in living a life of bodily and mental integrity”, and so the law should protect them from being tested on, held captive, or killed.

100,000 people have signed the action, smashing the 3,000 signatures that were required in order to trigger a cantonal vote.

If successful, it will be added to the cantonal constitution, and Sentience Politics hopes that it can soon be extended to the whole of Switzerland, potentially saving hundreds of primates from undergoing traumatic and deadly experiments.

At present, it is legal for experiments to be carried out on living primates in Switzerland, with the exception of apes such as gorillas and orangutans.

Experiments on animals are particularly common in cantons such as Fribourg, with the local university having conducted experiments on nonhuman primates since the 1970s. Recently, however, the university caused outrage after researchers were found to be feeding cocaine to monkeys. A petition demanding for an immediate halt to the experiments was signed by 19,000 people within just two weeks.

A date has yet to be set for the vote, but this is a major step forward for an amendment that was first launched in 2016. After facing years of opposition from cantonal and city governments, this recent ruling from the country’s highest court means that a vote can now proceed without any further obstacles.

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