# Legal personality `kaal:entity:legal-personality` **Status.** derived This node is assembled mechanically from the 5 claims that carry the concept tag `legal-personality`. It is a roster of what the corpus says under this term. It is **not** an adjudicated definition: no single statement here has been ruled canonical, and no first-appearance call has been made. Read the claims and judge for yourself. ## Every claim under this term 5 claims across 4 works, 2016 to 2025. **2016** - [2740477-007](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2740477-007) [failure/argued] *(failure mode)* -- Artificial intelligence cannot be held personally liable for damage it causes because national and international law do not currently recognize it as a subject of law, so compensation must be forced through existing provisions never designed for it. > However, national and international law do not (currently) recognize AI as a subject of law. Without legal personality, AI cannot be personally liable for damages. Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P.M. Vermeulen, Venture Capital as Dynamic Regulation of Disruptive Innovation (2016). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2740477 - [2808132-009](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2808132-009) [failure/argued] *(failure mode)* -- Because artificial intelligence is not recognized as a subject of law in national or international law, it has no legal personality and therefore cannot be personally liable for damages it causes. > provisions in the existing regulatory framework. However, national and international law do not (currently) recognize AI as a subject of law. Without legal personality, AI cannot be personally liable for damages.63 With autonomous AI playing an expanding role in Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P.M. Vermeulen, How to Regulate Disruptive Innovation - From Facts to Data (2016). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2808132 **2017** - [2834531-002](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2834531-002) [mechanism/asserted] *(failure mode)* -- Because neither national nor international law recognizes artificial intelligence as a subject of law, AI has no legal personality and therefore cannot itself be held liable for the damages it causes. > Because national and international law do not currently recognize AI as a subject of law, AI has no legal personality and as such cannot be held personally liable for damages. Mark Fenwick, Wulf A. Kaal, Erik P. M. Vermeulen, Regulation Tomorrow What Happens When Technology Is Faster Than the Law (2017). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2834531 **2025** - [5886342-012](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/5886342-012) [definitional/asserted] -- Legal Identity is the narrower category: it is an Identity to which rights and obligations are attributed on the basis of the applicable law, in particular natural and legal persons, so having an identity in a digital system does not by itself confer legal personality. > A Legal Identity is an Identity to which rights and obligations are attributed based on the Applicable Law, in particular Natural and Legal persons. Furrer Andreas, Wulf A. Kaal, Stephan D. Meyer, Universal Digital Law Codex (UDLC) (2025). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5886342 - [5886342-031](https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/5886342-031) [definitional/asserted] -- A DAO may or may not be a Legal Identity, so the Codex rules for DAOs are written to work whether or not the organization has legal personality under the applicable law. > (2) A DAO may or may not be a Legal Identity ac- Furrer Andreas, Wulf A. Kaal, Stephan D. Meyer, Universal Digital Law Codex (UDLC) (2025). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5886342 ## Verify Every claim above resolves to a record carrying a verbatim source quote, the sha256 of the source PDF, and a preformatted citation. Nothing here asks to be taken on trust. curl -s https://wulfkaal.github.io/entities/legal-personality.md | sha256sum **Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of this entity node. Its sha256 is the content hash.