Dimensions of Property under European Law. Fundamental Rights, Consumer Protection and Intellectual Property: Bridging Concepts?

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is, first, to reconsider property as a legal concept and as a social institution, by taking into consideration several insights provided by social sciences. Secondly, several regulatory measures are proposed in order to enhance an adequate protection of property. The author stars by analysing the protection of property as a fundamental right under EU law. She claims that the ECJ’s challenge is to strike the right balance between property rights and market build-up. Such a balance is to be found in the communicative network of discourses of the case-law of the ECtHR, and common traditions of Member States. Accordingly, the author suggests that the ECJ should be open to inputs from the ECtHR, namely through the ‘excessive burden’ criterion. The second regulatory analysis takes into consideration that property is intrinsically linked to consumption, and that owner is often necessarily a consumer. The function of EC consumer [protection] law, the function of European consumer policy, and the definition of the European consumer are the three interrelated questions that have guided the inquiry in Chapter III. Consumer policies, it is claimed, should be asymmetrical: they shall create benefits for those who are boundedly rational while imposing little or no harm on those who are to be considered fully rational. This distinction will provide the basis for a new standard in the assessment of the costs and benefits of regulatory options. Finally, the author inquires about situations where a conflict of properties might exist between a corporeal thing and an intellectual property right. It is claimed that lawmaking bodies must autonomously consider the interest(s) of the owner of the corporeal thing in the overall assessment of granting an intellectual property right. Before formulation of property rights, an appropriate weighing and balancing of all relevant interests is thus in need, in order to avoid normative inconsistencies.