What types of rights can be waived, and what types of rights cannot?

It's good you don't want such a table because last time I counted I had several million, most of which I waive on a daily basis.

Since you are asking about USA, some rights are specific to US citizens, and some rights are specific to US residents, so you could wave these rights by moving to another country or changing your citizenship. You will probably gain rights in another country if you do that.

This doesn't really have a general answer, not even any strong "rules of thumb" except that most statutory rights that expressly state that they cannot be waived cannot be waived (but not even all of those).

2 Answers 2

Unwaivable rights are often rights created by statute. A right is "Unwaivable" if a contract not to exercise it is void, or voidable. That does not mean that one must exercise all one's rights. Failing to exercise a right is often not the same as waiving it.

Unwaivable rights are are common in consumer protection laws, to prevent sellers, who have much more negotiation power, from forcing consumers to contract away the rights granted by statute, thus making the statutes meaningless. They are also common in landlord/tenant laws, and credit reporting laws, for similar reasons.

Many constitutional rights are waivable, but some are not. For example, in the US, one cannot waive one's rights under the 13th Amendment. A contract of voluntary slavery, or a peonage contract, is legally void in the US.

The only way to know which rights are waivable is to do research, or have someone do it, into the particular right. Such rights are often created by law when one party typically has a strong negotiating advantage, but that is not always the case.