Property Rights and Social Justice

Property Rights and Social Justice analyses 'progressive property' in action by examining the role of constitutional property rights guarantees in mediating private ownership and social justice. It combines insights from property theory with enlightening doctrinal analysis of the interaction between property rights and social justice in the constitutional and broader legal context. It does so through the prism of the Irish Constitution's property guarantees, which uniquely in the English-speaking, common law world both protect property rights and requires their regulation by the State to secure social justice. Through this analysis, the book grounds key debates in contemporary property theory in fresh, illuminating doctrinal examples, and enhances global debates about the constitutional protection of property rights. It argues that primacy is perhaps inevitably afforded to political determinations about the appropriate mediation of property rights and social justice, meaning that the political impact of constitutionalisation needs to be disentangled from its strict legal effects.

'This is an impressive book bringing the often US centered progressive property law debate to an Irish and therefore European context. It contributes an Irish perspective on constitutional property law demonstrating its compatibility with progressive property theory, and also provides us with an important lesson on the constitutionalization of property rights.' Bram Akkermans, Professor of European Private Law and Sustainability, Maastricht European Private Law Institute, Maastricht University, 'In this important and innovative new work, Professor Walsh combines her deep understanding of property theory with a rigorous reading of doctrinal property law in the context of Irish constitutional property to develop fresh insights on property law adjudication, and its implications for property theory. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding property theory and property law.' Lorna Fox O'Mahony, Professor of Law, Essex Law School, University of Essex, 'Property Rights and Social Justice: Progressive Property in Action provides a valuable and genuinely ground-breaking examination of Irish constitutional property law 'in action' through the lens of progressive property theory. As such, this book more than lives up to its promise that its focus on combining doctrine and theory will enliven and enrich debates about the complex relation between social justice and property rights, not only in an Irish context, but for all scholars and students interested in property theory and comparative constitutional property law. Providing a treasure trove of Irish examples, this book opens up a new chapter in progressive property debates.' Emma Waring, Lecturer in Property Law and Theory, Land Law and Art Law, York Law School, University of York

Rachael Walsh is an Assistant Professor in Law at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Her research is focused on the interface between public and private law in the context of property, with publications in the Modern Law Review, the Law Quarterly Review, the International Journal of Constitutional Law, the European Constitutional Law Review, and the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, and leading international edited collections. She is also a co-author of the current edition of the leading treatise on constitutional law in Ireland, Kelly: The Irish Constitution (2018).