7.4 Legal Status of the Dead Person, the Unborn Person, and the

Animal 7.4.1 Dead Person The general rule is stark: death extinguishes legal personality — actio personalis moritur cum persona (a personal action dies with the person) in its classic sphere. A corpse is not a person; in the main common-law tradition it is quasi-property of no one, held by the executor for burial. Yet the law spreads a net of interests around the dead: Reputation of the deceased — most systems are chary of defamation of the dead (the dead cannot be libelled, English law says), but many civil-law systems and codes penalize gross insult to the memory of the dead; relatives may sue for outrage/insult to their own feelings rather than the deceased's "right." The body and its disposal — statutes regulate organ donation (requiring pre-mortem consent or next-of-kin authorization), autopsy, exhumation; interference with a corpse and burial grounds is an offence (Nepal's Criminal Code 2074 criminalizes unlawful interference with dead bodies and graves). Testamentary directions — the will is the dead hand still governing the living; funeral rites, religious endowments (shraaddha obligations, guthi endowments in Nepal) and perpetual trusts give the deceased a scripted posthumous "voice," though subject to limits on how long property can be tied up for charitable/religious purposes. Interests of the estate — not the dead person, but the estate (a new juridical person —…