ABSTRACT
Eric Claeys’ new book, Natural Property Rights (forthcoming), is an effort to articulate a comprehensive natural rights account of property. It is an impressive work. This review argues, however, that Claeys’ account sometimes assumes that aspects of law are necessary or ‘natural’ when in fact they may be quite contingent. This review makes the argument in the style of a science fiction essay from the future, assuming a radically different property regime in a world transformed by climate change. It is a thought experiment intended to explore in an entertaining form whether natural law actually imposes limits on the substantive content of imagined property rights. If not, it should serve as a caution for the use of natural law to justify the property regime we have today.
Serkin, Christopher, The Future of Natural Property Law: Comments on Eric Claeys’ Natural Property Rights (March 22, 2023), Texas A&M University Journal of Property Law, 2023; Vanderbilt Law Research Paper No 23-29.
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