Natural Property Rights presents a novel theory of property based on individual, pre-political rights. The book argues that a just system of property protects people's rights to use resources and also orders those rights consistent with natural law and the public welfare. Drawing on influential property theorists such as Grotius, Locke, Blackstone, and early American statesmen and judges, as well as recent work in in normative and analytical philosophy, the book shows how natural rights guide political and legal reasoning about property law. It examines how natural rights justify the most familiar institutions in property, including public property, ownership, the system of estates and future interests, leases, servitudes, mortgages, police regulation, and eminent domain. Thought-provoking and comprehensive, the book challenges leading contemporary justifications for property and shows how property both secures individual freedom and serves the common good.

This book introduces a Lockean property theory and shows how that theory guides reasoning throughout property law and policy.

About the Author
Eric R. Claeys is Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. He has written more than twenty-five articles and book chapters on property, natural rights, and Lockean labor theory.


Book Information
ISBN 9781108844499
Author Eric R. Claeys
Format Hardback
Page Count 350
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press