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The Entitlement Of Chimpanzees To The Common Law Writs Of Habeas Corpus And De Homine Replegiando, Steven M. Wise

Golden Gate University Law Review

In this Article, I claim that humans enslave chimpanzees and thereby deprive them of their bodily liberty and that chimpanzees should be entitled to use the common law writs of habeas corpus and de homine replegiando and to bring their common law claims to bodily liberty before courts. In Part I, I demonstrate that chimpanzees are genetically highly similar to humans and quite cognitively and socially complex. In Part II, I argue that flexibility is part of the common law's basic structure, that legal personhood is one of the common law's basic values, that the structure of the common law …