LIBERAL PROPERTY AND LIVED PROPERTY: A CRITIQUE OF ABSTRACT UNIVERSALISM IN THE HUMAN RIGHT TO PROPERTY by Laura Dehaibi Faculty of Law McGill University, Montreal April 2020 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctorate of Civil Law © Laura Dehaibi, 2020 LIBERAL PROPERTY AND LIVED PROPERTY: A CRITIQUE OF ABSTRACT UNIVERSALISM IN THE HUMAN RIGHT TO PROPERTY Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... v Résumé ........................................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Part I – The Theoretical and Historical Foundations of the Human Right to Property ................ 11 Chapter 1 – Universal Human Rights Based on Lived Experiences ............................................ 11 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 11 1.2 The Criticism of Abstract Universalism: the Western Liberal Influence on Human Rights .. 17 1.2.1 Liberalism, natural rights, and the abstract definition of rights ....................................... 19 1.2.2 Universalizing liberalism in the United Nations system.................................................. 24 1.2.3 Liberalism, the categorization of rights, and ‘rights’ language ....................................... 28 1.3 Reformulating Universalism ................................................................................................... 33 1.3.1 Why care about universalism? ......................................................................................... 35 1.3.2 Lived universalism: Social life in location ...................................................................... 38 1.3.3 The social person of universal human rights ................................................................... 42 1.3.4 Dynamic universal norms from the bottom up ................................................................ 45 Chapter 2 – The Shortcomings and Prospects of Property Theory in Defining the Human Right to Property ......................................................................................................................................... 51 2.1 Introduction: National Lawyers, International Practice, and the Conflation of Concepts ...... 51 2.2 The Pervasive Influence of Liberal Rights: The Case of the Right to Property ..................... 57 2.2.1 Finding the lowest common denominator in liberal definitions of property ................... 58 2.2.2 A market-based approach to property relations ............................................................... 62 2.2.3 The limits of defining the right to property through ‘attributes’ ..................................... 65 2.3 The Social Function vs. the Social Potential of Property ....................................................... 68 2.3.1 The social functions of property: Passive property and external relations ...................... 69 2.3.2 The social potential of property ....................................................................................... 74 2.4 Property as a Human Right: A Concrete Right in Location ................................................... 77 i 2.4.1 What place for possessions in property relationships? .................................................... 77 2.4.2 Property in location .......................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 3 – Drafting a Human Right to Property: Conflated Notions, Deflated Hopes .............. 84 3.1 Introduction: Looking Back at the UDHR .............................................................................. 84 3.2 “Alone as Well as in Association with Others”: A Compromise on Property in the Context of Ideological Conflict ...................................................................................................................... 88 3.2.1 The origins of UDHR Article 17: How the eighteenth-century revolutions perceived property as an end of human life ............................................................................................... 89 3.2.2 Tensions re-enacted: The Cold War and the drafting of the UDHR ................................ 94 3.3 “Everyone has the Right to Own Property”: the Social within Property .............................. 103 3.3.1 Categorizing property: Negative freedom or social right? ............................................ 104 3.3.2 Attempts to reinstate the social potential of property: Humphrey’s concept of personal property ................................................................................................................................... 105 3.4 Lessons from Article 17 of the UDHR ................................................................................. 114 Part II – Stories of Property in Regional Case Law: From Property Rights to a Right to Property? ..................................................................................................................................................... 120 Chapter 4 – Methodology, Text, and Context: The Language of Location ................................ 120 4.1 Introduction: Why Look at Regional Case Law? ................................................................. 120 4.2 The Language of Property in Human Rights Courts ............................................................ 124 4.2.1 Analyzing the discourse of human rights judges ........................................................... 125 4.2.2 The importance of lived experiences in human rights cases .......................................... 128 4.2.3 Selection of cases ........................................................................................................... 131 4.3 Regional Instruments: A First Glimpse at Differences in Location ..................................... 133 4.3.1 European Convention: Human rights or European unity? ............................................. 134 4.3.2 Americas: Dissent and conformity................................................................................. 139 4.3.3 Banjul Charter: Balancing rights ................................................................................... 145 Chapter 5 – The Role of Regional Systems in Defining the Human Right to Property ............. 150 5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 150 5.2 Defining a Corpus of International Law ............................................................................... 151 5.3 The Autonomous Meaning of Property in the ECHR: Market-Integrated Property Rights . 159 5.4 Autonomous Meaning in the American and African Systems: An International Right to Property ....................................................................................................................................... 167 ii 5.5 The Place for Lived Experiences in Regional Case Law ...................................................... 172 5.5.1 European case law: Certainty before context ................................................................. 173 5.5.2 Inter-American case law: Emphasizing stories .............................................................. 177 5.5.3 African case law: Taking into account regional location ............................................... 181 Chapter 6 – Challenging Liberal Orthodoxies through Lived Experiences of Property ............. 186 6.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 186 6.2 When Stories Matter: Serious Violations and Rural Property .............................................. 188 6.2.1 Lived experiences of serious violations ......................................................................... 188 6.2.2 The special nature of rural land ..................................................................................... 194 6.3 Illegal Property in Europe: A Challenge to Formal Liberal Entitlements ............................ 200 6.3.1 Unauthorized buildings .................................................................................................. 201 6.3.2 Romani homes ............................................................................................................... 205 6.4 Indigenous Property: Adapted Locations.............................................................................. 209 6.4.1 Indigenous property in Europe....................................................................................... 210 6.4.2 Indigenous property in the Americas and in Africa ....................................................... 214 6.4.2.1 Communal possession as property .......................................................................... 216 6.4.2.2 The notion of use .................................................................................................... 218 6.4.2.3 The geography of location .....................................................................................