Laws of Property

This book discusses the ‘theory of dematerialised property’, a constructivist property theory that applies to tangible and intangible property alike. It considers the way in which this theory regards ‘property’ as a creation of the law and considers the possible corporality of things as a conceptually unconnected incidence of the legal-normative conception of the property object. The concept of dematerialised property is a new theory, although in legal practice it seems to have been established intuitively and unconsciously for a long time. The foundation for the discussion of dematerialised property is a theoretical examination of definitions, terminologies and concepts of property, particularly ownership and possession, and restricted real rights, as well as a comparative law overview of concepts of ownership and the acquisition and transfer of property rights in the different common law and civil law property systems. The theory of dematerialised property forms a good theoretical basis for explaining and defining forms of intangible property, like debts, money and shares, and modern forms of property, such as electronic money, non-fungible tokens or data. The book also features the ideas of property theorists in political philosophy, such as Locke and Hegel, and revisits specifically legal theories of property, such as by Hohfeld, but only to the extent to which all these theories are relevant to practical property law. It then deals with economic, sociological and psychological dimensions of property which are behind the mainly legal concept of property, aspects which are generally disregarded in traditional texts on property theory.