As humans, we share more than 98 percent of our DNA with our closest biological relative, the chimpanzee, though some scientists estimate the difference to be more like 0.6 percent than 2 percent. And while there is clearly a vast difference in that fraction of DNA separating a human from a chimp, the similarities between the species are clear.

Chimpanzees can communicate with each other, make tools, display emotions and have shown the capacity to understand the passage of time. They also have their own culture, which varies from tribe to tribe and helps delineate individuals.

And yet, while there is still a gulf that separates us from them, there is no doubt that these complex creatures, our closest living relatives on the evolutionary tree, deserve respect and protection. The question is, how much? A landmark case in Vienna, Austria, will help to answer that question.

Animal rights activists in Vienna are seeking to declare a 26-year-old male chimp named Hiasl a person, thus extending to him certain rights we would call "inalienable."

There are good reasons for this, due to Hiasl's situation. As a baby, Hiasl and another chimp, Rosi, were caught in Sierra Leone in 1982 to be used in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officials intercepted both chimpanzees and turned them over to an animal sanctuary.

The problem is this sanctuary has just gone bankrupt and people are worried about Haisl and Rosi's futures. Food and vet bills cost about $6,800 a month, and though donors are willing to support the chimps, under Austrian law, only a person can receive donations.

Establishing Hiasl's legal status as a person would allow the chimpanzee to "own" money and have a guardian responsible for appropriating it.

Without these protections, the concern is that Hiasl could be sold to someone outside Austria, exempting him from the country's strict animal cruelty laws.

"Our main argument is that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights," Eberhart Theier, the lawyer representing the Association Against Animal Factories in court, told The Associated Press. "We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions. We're not talking about the right to vote here."

The activists in this case have arranged for world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall to speak as an expert witness for the case. Goodall lends an air of credibility to the case that is hard to discount.

The idea of rights for chimpanzees is not unheard of. Seattle's own Great Ape Project aims to secure for all the great apes much the same rights as in the Hiasl case. Project members go about it differently, though, trying to establish apes as equal to humans, not actual humans.

The problem is, chimpanzees are not people. But when did we start thinking that anything not human deserves to be treated with disregard?

Intrinsic to Eberhart's argument is the idea that only humans deserve the right to live freely, or else he wouldn't be trying to classify apes as humans.

And if the notion of classifying a chimpanzee as a person is wrong, the fact that this court case is even happening points to a larger problem within Western society — we believe that we are the only things worth assigning rights to, and anything else had better watch out.

Just look to the state of the planet. Endangered species of both plants and animals are toppling at unprecedented rates because of our greedy sense of entitlement. Not only have we made the earth uninhabitable to other species, we've allowed global warming to get so out of hand that our way of life may eventually bring about our own extinction.

One of my bioanthropology textbooks even claims that within 20 years, all species of great apes will be extinct if current trends continue. How's that for shameful? How tragic would it be if we destroyed our closest living relatives, who happen to be the smartest animals on the planet?

What Hiasl's protectors need to be focusing on is a return to animal rights. Hiasl and Rosi's welfare is not a human rights issue (though it is an ethical one), and trying to make it so is the wrong way to go about this case. Instead, the activists should be focusing on primate rights.

Primates deserve the things the Association Against Animal Factories is asking for — the right to live, to eat and to die without being exposed to torture or pain.

The Great Ape Project has it right: apes are not people, but they certainly deserve to be treated with dignity. Just because a percentage point of DNA has made humans more powerful than others in the animal kingdom does not give our species dominion over any other.

Reach columnist Amy Korst at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.