Last week an Argentinian court ruled that a 28 year old orangoutang named Sandra is a non-person but has rights that should be protected. According to Fast Company, U.S. lawyers are deliberating the impact of such a ruling. The ruling essentially makes it so that Sandra can be sent to a sanctuary when animal rights attorneys for the orangoutang stated that she was, essentially, imprisoned 20 years after being transported to Argentina from a German Zoo.

However, the devil is in the details or the context of the case itself. I do not know enough about Argentina’s legal system as opposed to ours other than it encompasses elements of Brazil, France and Spain’s. I realize in the US animals do have certain, limited rights in the US such as laws against cruelty but it is limited only to that. A recent court decision in New York came down against an animal rights group seeking to give chimpanzees personhood status so they can have habeas corpus protections. This being done in an effort to free them from captivity.

None the less, I get the sense the Argentine court decision may not carry much weight here. According to Non-Human Rights Project Steven Wise who litigated the New York chimpanzee case and Fast Company interviewed, his response seemed underwhelmed.

The court says that it’s decision is based on a dynamic rather than static interpretation of Argentine criminal law and says it is “necessary to recognize the animal [presumably Sandra] has a subject of rights.”

He called the multiple erroneous reports “an echo chamber.” He theorizes that these reports said more than they really should have because of confusion over how common law and civil law countries operate their judicial systems.

“When a court says animals have rights, it doesn’t mean very much. There are millions of species of animals. Does a bug have rights? But there’s no specificity. That would cause us to sit up and pay attention.”

Regardless if the Argentinian court decision is helpful or not, it is not a good thing no matter how you look at it. To ascribe an animal certain constitutional or legal protections is the process to begin eroding individual, human rights themselves. Only humans have the ability to deal with other members of our own species by rational, voluntary means. For animal rights groups to state humans have no right to use animals for our betterment is tantamount to stating we have no control over our own lives. Consequently, human well being must be sacrificed for the welfare of creatures who not only lack any capacity of rational thought but also have no sense of morality. The consequence of a court of law establishing rights for animals is to embrace the savagery of the animal kingdom over the rationality of human civilization.