Natural Person: A Definition
A natural person is an individual human being who can be granted human rights. Human rights are considered inherent and inalienable, meaning they belong to every individual simply by virtue of being human, regardless of characteristics like nationality, ethnicity, religion, or socio-economic status.
Human rights are often implicitly granted only to natural persons. For example, the United States Constitution, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms both guarantee rights and obligations that apply to natural persons only.
A natural person is distinguished from a legal person. A legal person may be a private (i.e., a corporate entity) or public (i.e., government) organization. Examples of the distinction between natural and legal persons is that a natural person can be married or can hold public office, but a corporation cannot.
