In the last week I've quipped in comments about the case of an Austrian chimpanzee whose legal defenders are arguing his right to life at the European Court of Human Rights as an appeal since the Austrian Supreme court threw out their case, that he ought not be destroyed simply because the laboratory where he lived has gone bankrupt.

But my long standing interest in this issue is not primarly one of primate concern.

(please forgive the puns).

All rights cease to be rights when they are refused minorities. Any right which is withheld may only be considered to be a privilege. Thus I would argue that many millions if not billions of humans are denied privileges which are enshrined as human rights. The history of human rights has roots in many codifications of privilege. But the generally accepted declarations, lists and bills of rights find their roots in the first expressions of the French Revolution.

The UN charter is undoubtedly based on the rights of man which were proclaimed at the French revolution & to some other extent owe much to the bill of rights or American constitution & the bill of rights of England & later Scotland in the 1690's. Yet all those were unquestionably though termed "rights" merely privileges.

(The European convention on Human Rights brings them all together in a pamphlet which you may have sent your house free of charge if you can negotiate the switchboard at the EU offices & get put through to the right extention number & department desk for the relevant & appropriate member of European staff, or any such equivalent temporary, fixed contract or subcontracted temporary employee.)

The bill of rights of the USA includes the undoubtedly epicurian sentiments of its writer Jefferson "to pursue happiness" and the famous line "created equally".

Now that's where I came into this, oh yes, me and my brudders and sistahs in hoods.:.

Historically principle opposition to rights and thus support for the maintainence of privilege has been a class issue. That of king and serf, employer and employee, master and slave.

Culturally the strongest opposition to rights has been from the dominant instruments of western millenial culture or the church of Rome. Those who set out the rights of man at the French Revolution as those who framed the Bill of Rights of England or Scotland were not members of the Roman Church. The arguments for freedom, equality and liberty have been at odds with Christian theology since its first ideologue Paul advised his followers on the status of bondsmen.

Through the centuries, good theological arguments were found to undermine the trade in slavery, to allow men and then women regardless of income or ethnicity or property a right to vote in secret - but the greatest chalenges to liberty were without question put the encyclicals of 19th century popes.

In modern theology, man is pretty much the concept read in Genesis. He is placed in authority of all other animals and unique in Talmudic, Aquinine, or any theology as having a soul.

Then came Darwin.

I have always asked at what point in the past did our supposed non-soul bearing ancestors first find themselves with the burden of ensoulment? Did Neanderthal man or woman know right from wrong or were they as deviod of reason as theology of Christian, Jewish or Islamic logically argue they were?

Then came great simians who could use sign language, operate linguistic syntax, express their emotions, remember the day before and imagine the next, operate simple telelogical and hermeneutic functions, add - subtract and calculate.

In short we noticed they had reason.

It is great personal even conceited pleasure that I note the first right or privilege to be extended to the great simians is the "right to life".

We have neither raised them to our level or dropped to theirs. There are still billions of humans who are without privilege against the few thousands of simians who can sign, listen, work, read, feel and reason. Humans who are sentient, as sentient as a human migrant suffers.

But we are one step closer to recognising:-

.:. we are in thrall to neither masters nor gods but bad humans .:.

aint that neat?
read it again.

.:. we are in thrall to neither masters nor gods but bad humans .:.

_____ _____ _____ __________ __________ __________ __________ _____

links to coverage in English press :-
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/26/humanrights.animalwelfare?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/26/eaapes126.xml

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_on_Great_Apes
Human bills of privilege  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_rights