Maddox, Neil (2019) Limited, inclusive, and communitarian: in defence of recognising property in the human body. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 70 (3). ISSN 0029-3105
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Abstract
While recognising property in the human body would have its uses, there are objections to granting such rights
given the unique nature of the body. One objection is that property serves individualistic and not
communitarian values and fails to capture the body’s relational interdependent nature. I contest this objection
as it takes an overly narrow view of property as being ‘Blackstonian’ in character, eliding the diversity of
property institutions that actually exist. Thus, the usefulness of property law in the protection and
management of community resources and the manner in which property is often limited by non-property
interests that the law is accustomed to protecting have not been accounted for. I contend that property
facilitates cooperative human activity and could potentially provide useful tools for the protection of
individual and communal rights in the body. I further contend that, where property rights have tentatively
been recognised in human biomaterials, they are not strongly exclusive in character and are consistent with
property’s inclusive and communitarian nature in being limited to prevent public harm and by reference to
the non-property interests of other persons and the community.
Item Type: | Article |
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Keywords: | Blackstone; the body; ownership; property; personhood; tissue; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Law Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, MUSSI |
Item ID: | 13812 |
Depositing User: | Dr. Neil Maddox |
Date Deposited: | 13 Jan 2021 11:12 |
Journal or Publication Title: | Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly |
Publisher: | SLS Legal Publications (NI), Faculty of Law, Queen's University |
Refereed: | Yes |
Related URLs: | |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/13812 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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