Legal Entity

To have legal personality means to be capable of having legal rights and obligations within a certain legal system, such as entering into contracts, suing, and being sued. Legal personality is a prerequisite to legal capacity, the ability of any legal person to amend (enter into, transfer, etc.) rights and obligations. In international law, consequently, legal personality is a prerequisite for an international organization to be able to sign international treaties in its own name. Legal persons (lat. persona iuris) are of two kinds: natural persons (also called physical persons) – people – and juridical persons (also called juridic, juristic, artificial, or fictitious persons, lat. persona ficta) – groups of people, such as corporations, which are treated by law as if they were persons. While people acquire legal personhood when they are born, juridical persons do so when they are incorporated in accordance with law.