Manish Oza (University of Western Ontario – Faculty of Law) has posted Personification in Private Law (Forthcoming in Christopher Essert, Paul B. Miller, and Eva Micheler, eds., Legal Personhood in Private Law (Cambridge University Press, 2026)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This paper is about whether it makes sense to attribute legal personality to non-sentient entities, such as rivers or idols. First, I argue that the way private law assigns the exercise of legal powers makes it possible to personify a non-sentient entity. Second, I argue that doing so creates a new locus of decision-making authority and may give effect to a partial legal order. Third, I comment on whether this would be justified under a rights-based way of interpreting private law.