In The Idea of Property in Law, Penner considers the concept of property and its place in the legal environment. Penner proposes that the idea of property as a "bundle of rights" - the right to possess, the right to use, the right to destroy etc. - is deficient as a concept, failing toeffectively characterise any particular sort of legal relation, and evading attempts to decide which rights are critical to the "bundle".Through a thorough exploration of property rules, property rights, and the interests which property serves and protects, Penner develops an alternative interpretation and goes on to consider how property interacts with the broader legal system.

Property has long played a central role in political and moral philosophy. Philosophers dealing with property have tended to follow the consensus that property has no special content but is a protean construct - a mere placeholder for theories aimed at questions of distributive justice and efficiency. Until recently there has been a relative absence of serious philosophical attention paid to the various doctrines that shape the actual law of property. If the philosophy of property is to be more attentive to concepts lying between broad considerations of political philosophy and distributive justice on the one hand and individual rules on the other, what in this broad space needs explaining, and how might we justify what we find? The papers in this volume are a first step towards filling this gap in the philosophical analysis of private law. This is achieved here by revisiting the contributions of philosophers such as Hume, Locke, Kant, and Grotius and revealing how particular doctrines illuminate the way in which property law respects the equality and autonomy of its subjects. Secondly, by exploring the central notions of possession, ownership, and title and finally by considering the very foundations of conceptualism in property.

Legal scholars and philosophers have long been engaged in studying the secret of the internal structure of property in law. This text aims to advance our understanding of property as an idea and the power that claimed property rights should have against competing public interests.

Can private law assume an ecological meaning? Can property and contract defend nature? Is tort law an adequate tool for paying environmental damages to future generations? This book explores potential resolutions to these questions, analyzing the evolution of legal thinking in relation to the topics of legal personality, property, contract and tort. In this forward thinking book, Mattei and Quarta suggest a list of basic principles upon which a new, ecological legal system could be based. Taking private law to represent an ally in the defence of our future, they offer a clear characterization of the fundamental legal institutions of common law and civil law, considering the challenges of the Anthropogenic era, technological tools of the Internet era, and the global rise of the commons. Summarizing the fundamental institutions of private law: property rights, legal personality, contract, and tort, the authors reveal the limits of these legal institutions in relation to historical international evolution and their regulation in the contexts of catastrophic ecological issues and technological developments. Engaging and thoughtful, this book will be interesting reading for legal scholars and academics of private law and, in particular, those wishing to understand the role of law when facing technological and ecological challenges.

The book brings together a refreshing collection of new essays on property theory, from legal, philosophical and political perspectives.

Property law should expand opportunities for individual and collective self-determination and restrict options of interpersonal domination.