Property Rights as Human Rights

Property Rights as Human Rights

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Description

While progressives in the West like to imagine an idyllic world without property, international lawyers like to imagine a world grounded in respect for human rights. Neither sees property protections as part of their ideal. This is so even though (1) every society in recorded history has seen fit to establish mechanisms for protecting property for private, common or communal use; (2) rights to property are now embraced by some 95 percent of national legal systems (most commonly in their constitutions); and (3) property protections feature in a large number of international legal regimes, including at least 20 human rights instruments. International human rights law, at least in the form of treaties, protects forms of private, common and communal property. This chapter explores what the human right of property is and is not.

Source Publication

Economic Liberties and Human Rights

Source Editors/Authors

Jahel Queralt, Bas van der Vossen

Publication Date

2019

Property Rights as Human Rights

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