Correlative is the term adopted by Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld

Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld

Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld was an American jurist. He was the author of the seminal Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays .During his life he published only a handful of law journal articles...

 to describe the philosophical relationships between fundamental legal concepts in jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

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Hohfeldian analysis

Hohfeld was concerned that there was some ambiguity in the explanation of the similarities and differences between concepts in law. Hence, with the focus on the nature of rights, he proposed a system of analysis based on "jural correlatives" and "jural opposites". A correlative is where two concepts are logically consistent and the one necessarily implies the other. When two concepts are Hohfeldian opposites (technically, logical contradictions), they are mutually exclusive.

Thus, if A has a right with regard to B, an analysis of their relationship from B's point of view must imply that B has a duty to A. An owner of land may hold four distinct entitlements: rights, privileges, powers, and immunities. Hohfeld linked each entitlement to a corelative and its opposite:

Elements	Correlatives	Opposites
Right	Duty	No Right
Privilege or Liberty	No Right	Duty
Power	Liability	Disability
Immunity	Disability	Liability