Property Rights and Social Justice
Progressive Property in Action

Analyses the mediation of property rights and social justice through the prism of 'progressive' constitutional property rights guarantees.

Rachael Walsh (Author)

9781108446907, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 February 2023

319 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.465 kg

'Property Rights and Social Justice: Progressive Property in Action provides a valuable and genuinely ground-breaking examination of Irish constitutional property law 'in action' through the lens of progressive property theory. As such, this book more than lives up to its promise that its focus on combining doctrine and theory will enliven and enrich debates about the complex relation between social justice and property rights, not only in an Irish context, but for all scholars and students interested in property theory and comparative constitutional property law. Providing a treasure trove of Irish examples, this book opens up a new chapter in progressive property debates.' Emma Waring, Lecturer in Property Law and Theory, Land Law and Art Law, York Law School, University of York

Property Rights and Social Justice analyses 'progressive property' in action by examining the role of constitutional property rights guarantees in mediating private ownership and social justice. It combines insights from property theory with enlightening doctrinal analysis of the interaction between property rights and social justice in the constitutional and broader legal context. It does so through the prism of the Irish Constitution's property guarantees, which uniquely in the English-speaking, common law world both protect property rights and requires their regulation by the State to secure social justice. Through this analysis, the book grounds key debates in contemporary property theory in fresh, illuminating doctrinal examples, and enhances global debates about the constitutional protection of property rights. It argues that primacy is perhaps inevitably afforded to political determinations about the appropriate mediation of property rights and social justice, meaning that the political impact of constitutionalisation needs to be disentangled from its strict legal effects.

1. Progressive Property in Action: Widening the Doctrinal Lens
2. Understanding Progressive Property: Traits, Themes and Values
3. Property as Ideology, Individual Right, and Institution
4. Engaging Constitutional Property Rights
5. Standards of Review and the Form of Constitutional Property Rights
6. Adjudicating Fairness: The 'Unjust Attack' Assessment
7. Security of Possession in a Progressive Constitutional Context
8. Security of Value in a Progressive Constitutional Context
9. 'Progressive Property' in Action: Context, Complexity, and the Democratic Mediation of Property Rights and Social Justice.

Subject Areas: Property law [LNS], Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Comparative law [LAM], Political science & theory [JPA]