Legal Personhood

From the legal point of view, person is not co-extensive with human being. Nor is it synonymous with rational being or responsible subject. Much of the confusion surrounding the issue of the firm’s legal personality is due to the tendency to address the matter with only these, all too often conflated, definitions of personhood in mind. On the contrary, when the term person is defined in line with its original meaning as mask worn in the legal drama, it is easy to see that it is only the capacity to attract legal relations that defines the legal person. This definition, that avoids the undesirable emotional associations and equivocations that often plague the debate, is important for a legally-grounded view of the firm.

A Bill before the New South Wales Parliament attempted to re-frame harm to late-term fetuses as grievous bodily harm to the fetus itself rather than (under the existing law) grievous bodily harm to the mother. To achieve this, the Bill extended legal personhood to the fetus for a limited number of offences. The Bill was brought on behalf of Brodie Donegan, who lost her daughter Zoe at 32 weeks' gestation when Donegan was hit by a drug-affected driver. This article asks what the perspective of a grieving mother can bring to the debate, in terms of helping the criminal law accurately come to grips with the complexity of pregnancy and the specific harm of fetal loss. It assesses the likely impacts of a change to fetal personhood and suggests an alternative legislative approach which is less likely to result in an erosion of bodily autonomy for pregnant women.

This essay aims to provide an introductory account of Earth Jurisprudence as a legal theory and to examine its claims regarding rights of nature. First, two versions of Earth Jurisprudence qua legal theory are identified: a stronger and a moderate version, respectively. Then, the theory’s claims regarding the rights of nature are examined from the perspective of the general theory of rights. The idea of ascribing legal rights to Nature tout court is rejected, while it is acknowledged that sentient animals could be considered persons in law. Finally, the author suggests that instead of rejecting anthropocentrism, as Earth Jurisprudence proposes, the preservation of nature requires that more emphasis is put on human obligations with respect.

In a friendly interdisciplinary debate, we interrogate from several vantage points the question of “personhood” in light of contemporary and near-future forms of social AI. David Gunkel approaches the matter from a philosophical and legal standpoint, while Jordan Wales offers reflections theological and psychological. Attending to metaphysical, moral, social, and legal understandings of personhood, we ask about the position of apparently personal artificial intelligences in our society and individual lives. Re-examining the “person” and questioning prominent construals of that category, we hope to open new views upon urgent and much-discussed questions that, quite soon, may confront us in our daily lives.

For "AI and Law—Ethical, Legal, and Socio-political Implications." Ed. John-Stewart Gordon. Special Issue of AI & Society: Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Communication.

https://rdcu.be/cc0OT (Full Text)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-020-01129-1
https://philpapers.org/rec/GUNDWI

U radu autor analizira pravnu prirodu i međunarodnopravni status Bosne i Hercego-vine kao specifične složene države (državne zajednice) kroz prizmu položaja i uloge među-narodnih institucija i organizacija u njoj. U tom smislu, akcenat je stavljen na period posli-je potpisivanja Dejtonskog mirovnog sporazuma, sa osvrtom na najznačajnije pojedinosti od 1991. do 1995. godine. Dejtonski ustav (Aneks IV) sa svim kontroverznim izmjenama i pre-nosom nadležnosti, asimetrično unutrašnje uređenje Bosne i Hercegovine, te specifičnosti u funkcionisanju državne organizacije analizirani su u ovom radu. Takođe, međunarodne in-stitucije, na prvom mjestu Kancelarija Visokog predstavnika, ali i međunarodni (politički) voluntarizam pojedinih država neposredno ograničavaju međunarodni subjektivitet Bosne i Hercegovine u međunarodnom pravu čemu je autor posvetio posebnu pažnju u ovom radu. Ključne riječi: Bosna i Hercegovina, ustav, međunarodne institucije, visoki predstav-nik, međunarodnopravni subjektivitet

Who, or what, is a 'person' according to the law? How did this understanding of personhood come about? In the twenty-first century, environmentalism, animal rights, artificial intelligence, and corporate personhood have compelled us to consider these questions once again. Legal personhood is a foundational concept of Western legal thought and A Theory of Legal Personhood seeks to go beyond contemporary debates, challenging our very understanding of legal personhood itself.

Drawing on extensive research, scholarship, legislation, and court cases from around the globe, this book offers readers — with or without previous knowledge — new insights into legal personhood. It scrutinizes how personhood came to be understood synonymously with the holding of legal rights. It then posits that a better understanding of legal personhood is as a cluster property. Finally, it applies this new theory to explain and structure the numerous debates surrounding legal personhood.

There is a growing number of objections to the possibility and the practical use of personhood and theories based on it, particularly in bioethics. Chief on this attack has been the suspicion that many in the philosophical literature have expressed about the concept of person, both in its metaphysical and moral aspects. The charges leveled against this concept by different authors from different theoretical standpoints fall into four groups which I shall first try to discriminate – in doing so, I will count the over-simplification charge, the charge of vagueness/ambiguity, the cover-up/begging the question charge, and the irrelevance/superfluousness charge (I will use Bert Gordijn’s (1999)
basic formulations of the charges, subsuming under the former many other similar objections from other authors). It is my claim that we can answer all the charges in a non-problematic way, since most of these are unjustified or, at least, they could equally well be applied to many other concepts who play a fundamental role in philosophy, science, and in our own practical life.
My ultimate interest, however, is not so much on the objections
themselves but on showing how they all share a deeper metaphysical cum moral question - in each charge we will
inevitably reach the point where the metaphysical and the moral aspects of personhood meet and that link is what will prompts us from one charge to the other, until we finally devote our full attention to the kind of connection there is or should be between metaphysical personhood and moral personhood (or, to frame it in another possible manner, the link between the descriptive and the normative aspects of the concept of person).

Legal metamorphoses between persons/things have been recurrent in history: Persons can become things, animals can turn into persons, and even ghosts can obtain personhood in the legal domain. Law would work then as a form of magic, a powerful instrument to create realities that, although fictional, have very real effects. Drawing on anthropology and legal scholarship, I will show the links between law and magic. In this endeavor, I examine two groups of legal cases from Argentina where people and animals respectively obtained personhood through the magic of law. First, I analyze the so-called human rights trials that are judging the crimes of the last military dictatorship (1976–1983), and I argue that these are working to restore the legal personhood of those who enforcedly disappeared. Second, I examine a series of judgments that have recently ruled—for the first time in modern legal history—that orangutans, chimps, and elephants are " non-human persons. " I conclude this Paper by contrasting legal magic with shamanic practices. I argue that even if these two are linked, it is possible to find in some forms of shamanism a different way of framing the relationship between persons/things that can offer an alternative (to) law. * PhD Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant, School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London ([email protected]). A previous and shorter version of this Paper was read in the " Persons/Things " Workshop held at the University of Turku, Faculty of Law, Finland, on May 12–13, 2016. I deeply thank the organizers of this event, Toni Selkälä and Mikko Rajavuori, for the invitation to present my work, and to all the participants for the invaluable comments and discussions. As editors of this volume, Toni and Mikko have made very important suggestions to improve this Paper, either indicating sources to explore, things that went unnoticed to the author, or offering incredible ideas to continue exploring. I would like to think that I have reciprocated their intellectual generosity by presenting a work that is now less imperfect than what it was before.

This essay takes as its starting point a recent judgment by the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, which denied habeas corpus from the chimpanzee Tommy. The conclusion of the judgment is not challenged, but rather its underlying premise: that legal personhood could be straightforwardly equated with right-holding and/or duty-bearing. The Tommy case was not about granting the first legal right to the chimpanzee, because it already holds numerous rights. Neither can it be claimed that legal personhood concerns the capacity to be a party in legal relations, as nonpersons participate in Hohfeldian legal relations, too. The essay argues that legal personhood should rather be understood as being encompassed in the specific legal institutions that distinguish legal persons from nonpersons.

The concept of artificial intelligence is not new nor is the notion that it should be granted legal protections given its influence on human activity. What is new, on a relative scale, is the notion that artificial intelligence can possess citizenship-a concept reserved only for humans, as it presupposes the idea of possessing civil duties and protections. Where there are several decades' worth of writing on the concept of the legal status of computational artificial artefacts in the USA and elsewhere, it is surprising that law makers internationally have come to a standstill to protect our silicon brainchildren. In this essay, it will be assumed that future artificial entities, such as Sophia the Robot, will be granted citizenship on an international scale. With this assumption, an analysis of rights will be made with respect to the needs of a non-biological intelligence possessing legal and civic duties akin to those possessed by humanity today. This essay does not present a full set of rights for artificial intelligence-instead, it aims to provide international jurisprudence evidence aliunde ab extra de lege lata for any future measures made to protect non-biological intelligence.

What does it mean to be a person? The designation of personhood is given to those entities who have moral and/or legal status, and the significance of the designation varies depending on whether one is contemplating metaphysical, moral, or legal personhood. In this era of exponential technological advances, our previous understandings and worldviews are challenged ; we are witness to the creation of new life-forms and the interconnectedness of current life-forms. The lines between persons and property are becoming increasingly blurry. There are at least three major areas in which technology is challenging and even forcing us to reconsider traditional notions of personhood: fetal personhood, animal rights, and human-machine mergers.

ABSTRACT In  un  mondo  che  è  alla  ricerca  di  nuove  forme  giuridiche  per  tutelare  e  difendere  l’ambiente,  l’autore rintraccia il fenomeno della antropomorfizzazione giuridica della natura e delle sue entità. Non si tratta di un fenomeno isolato, ma questa soluzione alle problematiche ambientali è adottata in tre diversi continenti da  cinque  Paesi:  Ecuador,  Bolivia,  Nuova  Zelanda,  Colombia  e  nello  Stato  indiano  dell’Uttarakhand. L’autore in  primis osserva  il  fenomeno  nel  suo  svilupparsi  a  livello  costituzionale,  legislativo  e  giuri-sprudenziale  nei  singoli  Stati.  Una  volta  rilevato  che  tale  fenomeno  è  il  frutto  del  recepimento  della tradizione e della cultura ancestrale dei popoli che abitano nei singoli territori, analizza i valori culturali e la tradizione tramandata. Infine, l’autore analizza le principali questioni che emergono dalla manifestazione del  fenomeno  dell’antropomorfizzazione  giuridica  e  giunge  alla  conclusione  che  i  sistemi  di  protezione ambientale che hanno optato per una visione biocentrica oltre a mantenere la coerenza dell’intero sistema, si pongono su di un notevole piano di efficacia nella risoluzione delle problematiche ambientali.

In a world which is seeking new legal forms to protect and defend the environment, the author identifies the phenomenon of the juridical anthropomorphization of nature and its entities. This is not an isolated phenomenon, but  this  solution  to  environmental  problems  is  adopted  in  three  different  continents  by five Countries: Ecuador, Bolivia, New Zealand, Colombia  and the Indian State of Uttarakhand. First, the  author  observes  the  phenomenon  in  its  development  at  the  constitutional,  legislative  and jurisprudential level in each mentioned State. After he has found that this phenomenon is the result of the  transposition of  the  ancestral  tradition  and  culture  of  the peoples  who  live  in  these  Countries,  he analyses the cultural values and the tradition handed down. Finally, the author analyses the main issues that  emerge  from  the  manifestation  of  the phenomenon of legal  anthropomorphization  and  concludes that  the  environmental  protection  systems  that  have  opted  for  a  biocentric  vision,  in  addition  to maintaining the coherence of the entire system, place themselves on a remarkable plan of effectiveness in solving environmental problems.

Visa Kurki’s A Theory of Legal Personhood is an exciting new volume in the Oxford Legal Philosophy series that successfully undertakes the ambitious project its title promises. It offers a workable and unifying account of legal personhood that tracks contemporary advancements in analytical jurisprudence whilst masterfully incorporating a long-neglected subject into that broad tradition. Its direct and rigorous confrontation of many longstanding puzzles should be welcomed not only in the analytical jurisprudence tradition but also by practitioners and scholars who have been vexed by this thorny concept. Read the published version here:
https://www.modernlawreview.co.uk/november-2020/afrouzi-kurki/

Riassunto
Nel presente articolo l’autore pone l’accento sullo stretto legame che intercorre tra il diritto e la cultura. Il mondo del diritto allo stesso tempo trova spunti di riflessione nella tradizione e diventa manifestazione della cultura. In materia di diritto ambientale questa connessione trova il proprio apice nei diritti bioculturali e nei diritti delle entità naturali non umane. Nei nuovi sistemi di protezione ambientale poggiati sulle solide basi della cultura, l’autore indaga anche il nuovo ruolo dell’essere umano. Lo scopo del presente lavoro consiste nel dimostrare come, partendo dalla cultura, si possa giungere all’innovazione giuridica. L’esempio offerto dai nuovi sistemi di protezione ambientale, che si pongono come soluzioni alle problematiche ambientali, muove la riflessione dell’autore nell’intero lavoro ed egli giunge alla conclusione che l’ordinamento giuridico possa trovare soluzioni utili per risolvere i problemi del presente traendo ispirazione dal sapere antico e dalla cultura dei popoli che compongono i Paesi.
Abstract
In this article, the author emphasizes the close link between law and culture. The world of law at the same time finds food for thought in tradition and becomes a manifestation of culture. In the field of environmental law, that connection finds its apex in the biocultural rights and in the rights of non-human natural entities. In the new environmental protection systems based on the solid foundations of culture, the author also investigates the new role of the human being. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate how, starting from culture, legal innovation can be achieved. The example offered by the new environmental protection systems, which act as solutions to environmental problems, moves the author’s reflection throughout the work and he comes to the conclusion that the legal system can find useful solutions to solve the problems of the present, drawing inspiration from ancient knowledge and from the culture of the peoples that make up the Countries.
Resumen
En este artículo, el autor enfatiza el estrecho vínculo entre el derecho y la cultura. Al mismo tiempo, el mundo del derecho encuentra alimento para el pensamiento en la tradición y se convierte en una manifestación de la cultura. Con respecto al derecho ambiental, esta conexión encuentra su ápice en los derechos bioculturales y en los derechos de las entidades naturales no humanas. En los nuevos sistemas de protección ambiental basados en los sólidos cimientos de la cultura, el autor también investiga el nuevo papel del ser humano. El propósito de este trabajo es demostrar cómo, a partir de la cultura, se puede lograr la innovación legal. El ejemplo ofrecido por los nuevos sistemas de protección ambiental, que actúan como soluciones a los problemas ambientales, mueve la reflexión del autor a lo largo del trabajo y él llega a la conclusión de que el sistema legal puede encontrar soluciones útiles para resolver los problemas del presente, inspirándose en el conocimiento antiguo y en la cultura de los pueblos que componen los Países.

El artículo examina la tendencia de los jueces y tribunales a reconocer la personalidad jurídica de los entes naturales, como los ríos. Inicialmente partiendo del precedente judicial pionero de Nueva Zelanda, el estudio luego analiza las diferencias entre las decisiones de la Corte Constitucional colombiana de 2016 y la Corte de l'Uttarakhand (India) de 2017 sobre el tema, señalando las dificultades conceptuales y empíricas enfrentadas en este debate.
Revista de Direito Econômico e Socioambiental, Curitiba, v. 12, n. 3, p. 406-431
.

Artificial intelligence is experiencing rapid growth, taking centre stage in R&D investments, policy-making forums and academic literature. The protection of AI generated artwork under copyright law is only one of many policy questions across a range of issues within the intellectual property domain, considering AI as both object and subject of IP protection. However, it has already sparked debates all over the world for the re-examination of copyright legal framework. This Article wishes to contribute to this debate, addressing two research questions: a) whether works independently created by artificial intelligence systems are eligible for copyright protection under the existing legal framework and b) whether copyright is actually the best solution for protecting investments in robot-artists.

Why, if at all, does it make sense to assign some responsibilities to states rather than to individuals? There are two contemporary answers. According to the analogical theory, states can be held responsible because they are moral agents, much like human beings. According to the functional theory, states can be held responsible because they are legal persons that act vicariously though individuals, much like principals who act through agents. The two theories of state responsibility belong to parallel traditions of scholarship that have never been clearly distinguished. While the analogical theory dominates IR, political theory, and philosophy, the functional theory prevails in International Law. The purpose of this article is to bridge the gulf between ethical and legal approaches to state responsibility. I argue that IR scholars and political theorists have much to gain from the functional theory. First, it provides a plausible alternative to the analogical theory that avoids common objections to corporate moral agency. Second, the functional theory helps us to understand features of international law that have puzzled IR scholars and political theorists, such as the fact that states are not held criminally responsible. I suggest that states can be 'moral principals' instead of 'moral agents'.

Процесс концентрации и централизации капитала, обусловленный переходом от натурального хозяйства к товарному привел к изменению экономического представление о юридическом лице, совершенствования правовой составляющей этой конструкции. Бесспорно, что с помощью теории фикции Ф. К. Савиньи раскрывается основная концептуальная идея обоснования природы юридического лица через концентрацию имущества и денежных средств в руках автономного субъекта права, ограничения гражданско-правовой ответственности физического лица за результаты деятельности такого субъекта, обеспечило быстрое развитие этой правовой конструкции. Однако, сегодня мы наблюдаем потребность в положительной деформации этого концепта. Через собственные особые черты, которые раскрываются в признаках самостоятельной юридической ответственности и автономной участия в гражданском обороте юридическое лицо становится средством неправомерных действий в гражданском обороте связанных с ней физических лиц. Компенсаторностю этого обстоятельства выступает расширение границ юридической ответственности физических лиц за результаты деятельности юридического лица, а также фрагментарное сужение автономии ее участия в гражданском обороте, в частности в части защиты своих субъективных гражданских прав. Итак, определяя современный взгляд на природу юридического лица мы синтезируем положения теории фикции Ф. К. Савиньи и положения о сущности человеческого субстрата в жизни юридического лица, которые развернуты в теории интереса Р. Иерингу в единую интегративную теорию.

This paper has as its research problem the following question: what is it like to be an artificial intelligence? It aims to critically analyze the epistemological and semantic aspects developed by Thomas Nagel in What is it like to be a bat and The View from Nowhere, demonstrating the relationship between physicalism and subjectivity and its application to artificially intelligent beings. We chose to approach these two works because of the author’s importance in analytical philosophy and the approach to consciousness. The analysis shows that the defense of artificial intelligence as a subject of law is intrinsically based on physicalism. However, in refuting it, Nagel does not offer an alternative outside the scope of dualism. Thus, the Procedural Theory of the Subject of Law is developed with stages of emancipation of the being against the law. As a result, it is verified that the reductive physicalist vision is insufficient to substantiate the condition of the subject of law of an artificial intelligence as a legal and political being in the social order. However, if the three stages of its formation (emancipation, interspecies recognition, and personification) are observed, the possibility of achieving the condition under analysis is assumed. It is concluded that it is unverifiable to know what it is like to be an artificial intelligence. In the current scientific stage, an artificially intelligent being cannot (yet) be considered a subject of law, under penalty of characterization of instrumentalism. The methodology of integrated, analytical, deductive, and bibliographic research is used to obtain these results and conclusions

A Legal Fiction was first conceived as part of a larger work: a film based on an imaginary argument between Bertolt Brecht and Ayn Rand, about the relationship between the courtroom, didacticism, and architecture...The form that this section would eventually take, the screenplay of which is presented here, is much more limited in scope.

This paper offers a theoretical comparative study concerning the ecological exhortation made by Pope Francis in his Encyclic Laudato si’. The article analyses the role of civil law in setting up the destructive domain of the environment in the light of the factors that allowed the instrumental domination of man over nature. The study proposes a theoretical framework in the civil law arena in order to contribute to the ecological conversion proposed by Bergoglio.

An influential scholarly opinion argues since the 1950's that Christian Wolff coined the modern concept of general legal capacity and legal personhood with the term "persona moralis" in his Law of Nature (1740-1748), and was a precursor of the modern right to legal personhood. The present article challenges that opinion by conducting a corpus analysis of all the occurrences of the word “persona” used in Wolff's eight-volume treatise. The article argues that both Wolff's “persona” and “persona moralis” are to be read in the light of the Prussian Allgemeines Landrecht (ALR), which intended to protect a society of estates..

This paper will attempt to explore the concept of " human dignity " , its connection to fundamental human rights and its different historical and philosophical interpretations; it will then focus on the impact of the definition of " human being " or " person " on the recognition of rights, with special reference to matters of bio-law.

RIASSUNTO: Nel presente articolo l’autore analizza l’influsso dei valori culturali nel diritto. Le democrazie moderne si trovano ad affrontare importanti sfide: ascoltare la voce dei popoli che chiedono il riconoscimento dei propri valori culturali e inserire questi valori all’interno dell’ordinamento giuridico. Nell’era dell’Umanesimo Ecologico la cosmovisione indigena fa ingresso nel diritto e contribuisce alla formazione dei nuovi sistemi di protezione ambientale. Il riconoscimento della natura o delle sue entità come soggetto di diritti o persona giuridica è frutto del dibattito politico e giuridico tra i popoli che compongono gli Stati. L’affermazione dei diritti della natura comporta notevoli conseguenze in termini giuridici e sociali. L’autore, per analizzare le nuove sfide delle democrazie moderne che hanno accolto le istanze dei popoli indigeni volte al recupero della sensibilità ambientale della tradizione, esamina le esperienze di Ecuador, Bolivia, Nuova Zelanda, Colombia e India. L’analisi critica è focalizzata sul modo in cui i valori culturali del rispetto per la natura hanno fatto ingresso negli esempi concreti.
ABSTRACT: In this article the author analyses the influence of cultural values in law. Modern democracies are facing important challenges: listening to the voice of peoples who ask for the recognition of their cultural values and introducing these values within the legal system. In the era of Ecological Humanism, indigenous cosmovision enters law and contributes to the formation of new environmental protection systems. The recognition of nature or its entities as a subject of rights or a legal person is the result of the political and juridical debate between the cultures of the peoples that make up the States. The affirmation of the rights of nature has significant consequences in legal and social terms. The author observes the experiences of Ecuador, Bolivia, New Zealand, Colombia and India to examine the new challenges of modern democracies that have accepted the demands of indigenous peoples aimed at recovering the environmental sensitivity of tradition. The critical analysis is focused on the way in which the cultural values of respect for nature entered in the concrete examples.
RESUMO: Neste artigo, o autor analisa a influência dos valores culturais no direito. As democracias modernas estão enfrentando desafios importantes: ouvir as vozes dos povos que pedem o reconhecimento de seus valores culturais e inserir esses valores no sistema jurídico. Na era do Humanismo Ecológico, a cosmovisão indígena entrou no mundo do direito e contribuiu para a formação de novos sistemas de proteção ambiental. O reconhecimento da natureza ou de suas entidades como sujeito de direitos ou pessoa jurídica é resultado do debate político e jurídico entre as culturas dos povos que compõem os Estados. A afirmação dos direitos da natureza tem consequências significativas em termos jurídicos e sociais. O autor observa as experiências do Equador, Bolívia, Nova Zelândia, Colômbia e Índia para examinar os novos desafios das democracias modernas que aceitaram as demandas dos povos indígenas que visam recuperar a sensibilidade ambiental da tradição. A análise crítica está focada na maneira pela qual os valores culturais do respeito à natureza entraram nos exemplos concretos.

paper presented at the Western for human rights plenary session; part of this is part of current completed book manuscript discussing the links between criminalized racial minorities (particularly the prison system) and criminalized immigrants/refugees (esp. the detention system) (note: I have just updated the paper to correct some type-os and a few incomplete sentences; any end notes I added are marked "update")

http://www.diaphanes.net/titel/whats-legit-6053

Arendt’s criticism of human rights is not that they are powerless — and therefore useless but also harmless. Her criticism is rather that human rights entail disastrous negative effects when incorporated in the heart of nation states. She argues that it was the institution of human rights as “the basis of the constitutions of all civilized countries” which made possible that a vast number of people in the twentieth century — for the first time in history — lost any protection that human rights were originally supposed to provide. At the heart of this problem there is, as I will show in this article, a division between two kinds of rights: between human rights as citizen rights and human rights as such (1). The main difference between these two kinds of rights lies, according to Arendt, not in their form but in their content (2). The fatal consequences of this difference become evident when citizen rights are lost (3). This loss of citizen rights is not just the end of human rights, but involves the realization of a problematic aspect of their idea (4). Contrary to expectations, this realization takes place as a killing of the juridical person, that is, of legal capacity (5). As opposed to this effect of human rights, Arendt develops, as I will outline, the “right to have rights” as a right to being judged (6). In the last step, I will show what transformation of the idea of rights this involves, which problems this transformation answers — and what problems it raises (7).

On April 19th, 2018, Steven Wise, American lawyer and emblematic founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, presented the Spanish edition of his book written in 2000, « Rattling the cage: Toward legal rights for animals », at the occasion of its release in Spain under the title « Sacudiendo la jaula: Hacia los Derechos de los animales » in April of this year. The event was organized at the Museu i Centre d’Estudis de l’Esport Melcior Colet of Barcelona, in partnership with the Private Foundation CyO, the NGO Esport Solidari Internacional, the publisher Tirant lo Blanch, the Master of Animal Law and Society of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and the ICALP.

The translation of this classic in the animal rights field and international movement for the recognition of legal personhood and fundamental rights for animals will provide the Spanish-speaking public with the opportunity, more than 30 years after Steven Wise pioneered the fight for their legal rights, to understand the arguments that abound in favor of upgrading the legal status of animals and the mechanisms and legal techniques that are used to reach this goal before US courts.

This chapter considers the production and reception of refugee narratives through the categories of refugee law, and the creation of legal personhood arising out of the 'multiplicity of recognitions' involved in the determination process. It asks whether the legal categories provide opportunities for an empowering a self-narrating identity to be shaped by those involved in the narrative, drawing upon Ricoeur (on narrative), Taylor (on recognition) and Butler (on performativity) amongst others.

This paper has as its research problem the following question: what is it like to be an artificial intelligence? It aims to critically analyze the epistemological and semantic aspects developed by Thomas Nagel in What is it like to be a bat and The View from Nowhere, demonstrating the relationship between physicalism and subjectivity and its application to artificially intelligent beings.  We chose to approach these two works because of the author's importance in analytical philosophy and the approach to consciousness. The analysis shows that the defense of artificial intelligence as a subject of law is intrinsically based on physicalism. However, in refuting it, Nagel does not offer an alternative outside the scope of dualism. Thus, the Procedural Theory of the Subject of Law is developed with stages of emancipation of the being against the law. As a result, it is verified that the reductive physicalist vision is insufficient to substantiate the condition of the subject of law ...

Debate whether legal persons can be criminally liable has been subject of academic interest and discussions for a long time. Led by Latin phrase "societas delinquere non potest", the vast majority of legal systems did not accept criminal liability of legal persons for a long time. The key argument for this viewpoint was the lack of "mens rea" element (the "guilty mind" or intention of an individual). Yet, it would be unfair to say that legal persons were not responsible for breach of law in any other way. Legislation of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia recognized economic transgressions as a separate category of criminal offence. After the dissolution of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, all member states showed commitment to European integration. In order to join the European Union, candidates for future membership had to harmonize national law with "acquis communautaire" and consequently introduced criminal liability of legal persons in criminal and criminal procedure codes. In the paper, besides the historical background, the author analyzes differences and similarities between criminal liability of legal persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, focusing on specific features of criminal proceedings against legal persons. Both countries adopted a model of derived, subjective and cumulative liability. Author compares differences between specific matters of criminal procedure against legal persons. The issue that deserves special attention in the context of derived liability of legal persons is whether a natural person and a legal person can have joint defense. Besides specific features of a criminal procedure against legal persons, the paper also elaborates different regulation of sanctions, security measures and consequences of conviction for against a legal person. Finally, in the conclusion, the author advocates intervention in B&H legislation, following the solutions prescribed by the Law on the Liability of Legal Persons for Criminal Offenses regarding joint and mandatory defense, and, especially, for establishing of a public criminal register of convictions against legal persons. Public 170 criminal register of convictions against legal persons has a vital role in national economy, having in mind that legal persons are most common users of financial services. Key words: criminal liability of legal person, model of derived liability, joint defense of legal person, mandatory defense of legal person, public criminal register of convictions against legal persons.

This article has the following research problem: what is it like to be a subject of law? As a general objective, it aims to understand how the subject of law is formed. As a specific objective, it intends to answer the following question: are non-human animals subject of law? It is based on the assumption of a critical and analytical theory of law. By this, we mean that we will focus on the relationship between the individual and the norm. As a result, we obtain three processes for the formation of the subject of law. The emancipatory process is responsible for the struggle to form and transform the individual into a subject. The recognition process presupposes that there is in interspecies relations a connection between the subjects of law already consolidated and those who have just entered the legal norm. The subjectification process and personification process refers to the legal system’s granting of personality in the face of the claimant subject’s demands. Thus, we can conclude that non-human animals are not considered subjects of law because they do not dominate the language and cannot fight against legal domination and exercise by themselves their rights and duties, an elementary and indispensable condition for the configuration of this legal category. Thus, one contributes to the thesis of the procedural theory of the subject of law to the extent that one can reduce contingencies and social complexity, being them directly proportional. This does not mean that animals cannot be protected. The environmental protection established in the Federal Constitution is apt and efficient for such exercise since these non-human animals will be considered centers of legal imputation and deserving of security based on environmental law, and not in their condition as subjects of law. The methodology used to develop this reasoning is the integrated revision and bibliographical research.

This paper offers a deconstruction of the framing of childhood and child rights as 'disabil-ity' , arguing for a strengthening of the legal personhood of children, based on the revolution of personhood and the re-making of the human condition in the disability rights movement. As the general debate on children's legal capacity and standing tends to take place from within the traditional liberal and existing legal paradigms of children's rights – which emphasise the legal disability of children and their lack of agency – it occurs in isolation from the broader theoretical debates on personhood and capacity. In re-imagining disability, new insights can be gained by reflecting on the scholarship from other perspectives , such as disability theory.