Protecting Property in European Human Rights Law

This book examines the development of the protection of property in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The First Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms introduced the protection of property into the Convention system. The ECHR's case law developed an autonomous concept of property and set out the modes and conditions of State interference with property. Various legal developments can be discerned in the protection of property, such as the emergence of restitution cases and pilot judgments. The author shows that the system of protection has evolved from a system where the State merely refrains from interfering with property, to one in which the State has the obligation to protect property. Although the ECHR has been guided by the concept of social justice in recent judgments, the author concludes that it is doubtful whether social rights, such as the right to housing, will be included among the values enjoying protection as property.