Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Barry, Norman --- "Property Rights in Common and Civil Law" [2004] ELECD 105; in Colombatto, Enrico (ed), "The Elgar Companion to the Economics of Property Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004)

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to the Economics of Property Rights

Editor(s): Colombatto, Enrico

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781840649949

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Property Rights in Common and Civil Law

Author(s): Barry, Norman

Number of pages: 20

Extract:

8 Property rights in common and civil law
Norman Barry


Introduction
Although in the modern world the problems of the economics of property are
the same whatever the legal system in which they occur, and indeed there has
been some convergence across different orders in the methods for their reso-
lution, it is still important to understand that there are two great rival legal
systems for their resolution ­ the common law model and that of civil law.
One initial, and simple, distinction should be made. In common law countries
a distinction is normally made between civil and criminal law: the former
referring to tort, contract, trusts, property and so on, the latter meaning
robbery, murder, rape and so on. It is true that actions under the former are
brought by private individuals against other private individuals and in the
latter it is the state that proceeds against wrongful behaviour under public
law. Wrongful action held to be damaging to society at large as well as to
private persons can be criminal. And it is also the case that common law
systems typically have a body of public law which is not concerned with
crime but administrative matters and proceedings are initiated by public
bodies. But while, of course, civil law does make a similar distinction be-
tween private and public law, it is the very important differences between the
procedures used by the two legal regimes over common problems of tort,
contract and property with which I shall be concerned.
...