legal personhood

Rights-bearing legal status

Legal personhood is the status of being recognized by law as an entity with rights, duties, and the capacity to sue or be sued.

Humans have it automatically; corporations, governments, and other organizations acquire it through legal mechanisms.

The concept occasionally extends to rivers, ecosystems, or AI systems when lawmakers grant them protected status: The court considered whether the chimpanzee could be granted legal personhood.

Opposites
legal status

legal personhoodcivil death

Forfeiture of rights while living

statelessness · outlawry · rightlessness · non-recognition · attainder

ontological category

legal personhoodthing

Unspecified entity or matter

object · slavery · enslavement · chattel · commodification

ontological status in law

legal personhoodsocial death

Total loss of social standing

Family

legal, legality, legally, legalize, legalization, illegal, illegally, illegality, legalese

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Used worldwide · Timeless · Abstract · Rated G