Demystifying Legal Personhood for Non-Human Entities: A Kelsenian Approach

Author(s)

Thomas Buocz, Iris Eisenberger

Abstract

This article aims to show that minimalist theories of legal personhood are particularly well suited to evaluating legal personhood proposals for non-humans. It adopts the perspective of Hans Kelsen’s theory of legal personhood, which reduces legal persons to bundles of legal norms. Through the lens of Kelsen’s theory, the article discusses two case studies: legal personhood for natural features in New Zealand and legal personhood for robots in the EU. While the New Zealand case was an acclaimed success, the EU’s proposal was heavily criticised and eventually abandoned. The article explains these widely differing outcomes by highlighting the relevant legal norms and their addressees rather than legal personhood itself. It does so by specifying the rights and obligations that constitute the legal persons, by preventing the attribution of any other rights and obligations to these persons and, finally, by tracing who is ultimately addressed by the relevant rights and obligations.

Organisation(s)

Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law

External organisation(s)

Universität für Bodenkultur Wien

Journal

Oxford Journal of Legal Studies

ISSN

0143-6503

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqac024

Publication date

10-2022

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

505016 Legal theory

Portal url

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/demystifying-legal-personhood-for-nonhuman-entities-a-kelsenian-approach(a1ea9ac8-b96c-444c-a1b4-653a644ff11c).html