Rights and Private Law

In recent years a strand of thinking has developed in private law scholarship which has come to be known as 'rights' or 'rights-based' analysis. Rights analysis seeks to develop an understanding of private law obligations that is driven, primarily or exclusively, by the recognition of the rights we have against each other, rather than by other influences on private law, such as the pursuit of community welfare goals. Notions of rights are also assuming greater importance in private law in other respects. Human rights instruments are having an increasing influence on private law doctrines. And in the law of unjust enrichment, an important debate has recently begun on the relationship between restitution of rights and restitution of value. This collection is a significant contribution to debate about the role of rights in private law. It includes essays by leading private law scholars addressing fundamental questions about the role of rights in private law as a whole and within particular areas of private law. The collection includes contributions by advocates and critics of rights-based approaches and provides a thorough and balanced analysis of the relationship between rights and private law.

1. Rights and Private Law Donal Nolan and Andrew Robertson 2. Rights in Private Law Peter Cane 3. Our Most Fundamental Rights Allan Beever 4. Social Purposes, Fundamental Rights and the Judicial Development of Private Law Francois du Bois 5. Rights and Other Things Robert Stevens 6. Beyond 'Right' and 'Duty': Lundstedt's Theory of Obligations TT Arvind 7. Of Rights Superstructural, Inchoate and Triangular: The Role of Rights in Blackstone's Commentaries Helge Dedek 8. Rule-Based Rights and Court-Ordered Rights Stephen A Smith 9. Rights and Responsibility in the Law of Torts John CP Goldberg and Benjamin C Zipursky 10. Damages and Rights Andrew Burrows 11. Explaining the Inexplicable? Four Manifestations of Abuse of Rights in English Law JW Neyers 12. Rights and the Basis of Tort Law Nicholas J McBride 13. Is the Role of Tort to Repair Wrongful Losses? Gregory C Keating 14. The Edges of Tort Law's Rights Roderick Bagshaw 15. Rights, Pluralism and the Duty of Care Andrew Robertson 16. 'A Tort Against Land': Private Nuisance as a Property Tort Donal Nolan 17. Private Nuisance Law: A Window on Substantive Justice Richard W Wright 18. Rights and Wrongs: An Introduction to the Wrongful Interference Actions Sarah Green 19. Misfeasance in a Public Office: A Justifiable Anomaly within the Rights-Based Approach? Erika Chamberlain 20. Unjust Enrichment, Rights and Value Ben McFarlane 21. Rights and Value in Rescission: Some Implications for Unjust Enrichment Elise Bant