The silent transformation of property

Abstract

Contrary to prevalent scepticism, the right to private property transcends the protection of economic exchange and can be relevant to broader societal discourses. In Europe, claims based on the protection of private property have been made in a wide variety of contexts before the ECtHR and the CJEU. They range from the protection of consumers and their family homes from unfair mortgage terms to the subsistence and wellbeing of individual applicants and from banking supervision and shareholding rights to salary and pension cuts following the financial crisis. The core issue that cuts across these examples relates to our understanding of the right to property and the way in which it is shaped in diverse and complex governance structures within, and especially beyond, the state. In this context, the nature of the right remains elusive and riddled with a fundamental tension between its economic and non-economic sides.