161 10 Property Definition This resource includes all of the material assets (for example, buildings, meeting rooms, equipment, lands, IT equipment, etc) at the disposal of different actors that own or hold rights of use for the implementation of their different activities. These assets are not only indispensable to the implementation of the regular activities of these actors, they also play a central role in the communication functions of the latter with their social, political and economic environment. The assets controlled by public actors are highly
PART I Property 39 Introduction to Part I The first part of this book is divided into five chapters. They address in turn the meaning of property today (1), the role of property in a modern constitutional mode of government (2), the relationship between sovereignty and property (3), the historical movement of the State from political enterprise to the modern State (4) and, finally, how modern constitutional systems mix political democracy and what can be economic despotisms (5). To start with, it is important to realize that contrary to the common
Recent decades have witnessed the creation of new types of property systems, ranging from data ownership to national control over genetic resources. This trend has significant implications for wealth distribution and our understanding of who can own what.
This book explores the idea of ownership in the realm of plant breeding, revealing how plants have been legally and materially transformed into property. It highlights the controversial aspects of turning seeds, plants and genes into property and how this endangers the viability of the seed industry.
Examining ownership not simply as a legal concept, but as a bundle of laws, practices and technologies, this is a valuable contribution that will interest scholars of intellectual property studies, the anthropology of markets, science and technology studies and related fields.
Amid the shift towards neoliberalism and the privatization of resources, this book provides a radical new lens to view property and property theory.
Boldly challenging the conventional theories of property law that have shaped our understanding for centuries, leading expert Paddy Ireland explores the rise and growth of new intangible property forms; the nature of ‘investment’ and of property-as-capital; and the empirical realities of modern property.
Raising broader questions about ownership in society, the author ignites a powerful conversation about the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth, forcing us to confront that our current property system bears considerable responsibility for the current ‘polycrisis.
This groundbreaking work will set the agenda for a new era in property theory.
Universalising capitalism In naturalising generalised private property – private property in the means of production as well as in personal possessions – much property theory tends also to naturalise capitalism. The emergence of private property and capitalism tends to be portrayed as not only progressive but more or less inevitable. In this respect, it is at one with the inclination – common since the eighteenth century and running through the work of Hume and Smith, as well as through the work of Blackstone and anthropologists like Morgan – to see history
Property as a historical category In his inaugural lecture at Oxford, in a foretaste of what was to become The Concept of Law , H L A Hart argued that one should try to describe the practice of law before attempting to develop definitions and theories. ‘Though theory is to welcomed’, he wrote, ‘the growth of theory on the back of definition is not’. 1 His stance was not anti-theoretical but advocated empirically informed theorisation. It was in this spirit that Craig Muldrew warned against the tendency to derive assumptions about the operation of actual
The revolution in property: institutionalising modern property As late as the sixteenth century, a large proportion of English farming was still being undertaken by farmers working within a complex system of open fields and common rights. Two centuries later, notwithstanding widespread enclosure, much land was still commonly held and in many parts of the country it was still often the case that no one landowner enjoyed exclusive rights to use particular tracts of land. Rather, many different people possessed rights, recognised in custom and law, to use land
ten Property offenders Introduction Well it just happened; I didn’t plan to do it or anything …Taz dared me to nick it by putting it under my hoodie … He was really laughing and I wasn’t going to let him see I was scared so I took them … These statements are very typical of what offenders say when asked to account for an offence. They frequently see offending as spontaneous events which happen without reason. However, while acquisitive crime, like most offending, has elements of impulsiveness, it is rarely an isolated act: Most criminologists would agree
The new essentialism: reviving property as thing-ownership It is clear not only that the ‘things’ deemed capable of being objects of property have changed quite markedly over time and vary from place to place, but that the very concepts of ‘property’ and ‘ownership’ as we now understand them are peculiarly modern and culturally specific. This has not prevented scholars from searching for a general concept of property that is applicable across time and between cultures and applicable to all resources. During the ascendancy of the bundle of rights conception
1. Introduction Following from the previous chapter , this chapter explains why viewers’ liability could and should be strict, rather than be merely fault-based. Building on the discussion in Chapters 4 and 5 it further explains how a property-based understanding of privacy helps justify both strict liability and its proper limits; thus avoiding excessive liability. Hence, this chapter makes three contributions: doctrinal, normative and conceptual. Doctrinally, it explains that (1) the misuse of private information tort ( Privacy ) is already
