Person’s declaration as deceased: Problem aspects in civil, labour, and family legal relations

The discourse on post-human rights is transforming the very paradigm of both the legal determination of a person’s death and the attitude towards its implications. Considering the current state and vectors of development in the legal understanding and relevant legislative provisions for declaring a person dead has become an extremely urgent task of a scientific and practical nature. Research into the legal aspects of human death allows for an expansion of knowledge about the relationships and connections that exist in society. Based on the bibliographic method of analysis, as well as comparative legal and logical methods, the study examines the post-human concept of recognising and declaring a person dead, as well as the rights of a person declared dead, particularly within the frameworks of the will theory and the interest theory. It is shown that these two theories, within the post-human paradigm, stand in a certain degree of contradiction to one another. In the context of the legal systems and traditions of different countries, the civil law consequences of declaring a natural person dead are analysed, and the peculiarities of altering or terminating property and personal non-property legal relations as a result of such declaration are considered. It is emphasised that the philosophical foundations of the concept of “rights” must be taken into account when determining the legal consequences of declaring a person dead – in particular, posthumous legal rights constitute one of the core vectors of such consideration. A conceptual framework for the rights of the deceased is proposed, taking into account the post-human trajectory in the development of legal concepts of human rights. The results of the study broaden the array of components within the legal understanding of human death as a legal fact, as well as its legal consequences