A critical knowledge of the evolution of the idea of property would embody, in some respects, the most remarkable portion of mental history of mankind.

– L.H. Morgan

Now you try and say what is involved in seeing something as something. It is not easy.

– Ludwig Wittgenstein

In this paper I argue that a comparison of English and Aboriginal conceptions of property yields insight into the ontologically specific grounds that inform institutionalized socio-cultural practices like property. Where the foundations of English conceptions of property are highly rationalistic, Aboriginal conceptions eschew categorization and are indicative of a highly nuanced and different way of understanding the worldliness of a human being. As such, a comparison of such conceptions becomes not simply a comparison of ways of owning and possessing, but a cross-cultural comparison of ways of relating to the world at large for what are ostensibly economic purposes.

To argue this is to assume that there is much more going on within culture that is determinative of ways of being than to simply assume that all cultures share universal cultural traits. In this paper I therefore discuss some of the philosophical foundations that underlie Western conceptions of the human’s relation to the world as embodied in principles of property law, as well as looking at the philosophical significance of that view. I also look at the way various Aboriginal peoples in Canada understand their own relationship to the world-at-large as it is expressed in what they understand as the property regimes of their society.

Marquée par le positivisme, la modernité juridique a fait de l’objectivité et de la neutralité non seulement des idéaux mais des postulats. Plusieurs juristes, gravitant principalement dans l’orbite anglo-américaine, estiment cependant que ces postulats n’ont en bout de ligne servi qu’à masquer l’imposition à toute la société des systèmes normatifs en vigueur au sein des seuls groupes dominants, consacrant ainsi non seulement l’exclusion effective de plusieurs segments de la population mais également l’occultation symbolique de leur réalité sociale. Ce constat en incite d’ailleurs un nombre croissant à remettre en question le rôle que jouent l’objectivité et la neutralité dans les processus intellectuels et institutionnels d’élaboration et d’interprétation des normes juridiques. Ces juristes, qui se réclament de courants de pensée voués à l’affirmation sociale de groupes historiquement défavorisés, font un impératif catégorique de la prise en considération par la société majoritaire de l’expérience distincte qu’ont vécue et que vivent encore les membres de ces groupes, dont l’exclusion se fonde généralement sur la possession d’une identité quelconque, longtemps présumée moins digne de respect. C’est cette référence fondatrice à la variable identitaire qui unit leurs discours, de sorte qu’au-delà des différences méthodologiques et philosophiques les opposant, tous ces juristes participent à une mouvance que nous avons qualifiée ailleurs de «critique juridique identitaire». De fait, qu’ils se réclament de l’analyse féministe du droit, de la Critical Race Theory ou de la critique postcoloniale du droit, tous militent pour que soit enfin entendue la parole des groupes avec lesquels ils se solidarisent. De même, tous communient au projet d’ouvrir l’epistemologie du droit à cette parole. A une critique politico-philosophique soulevant la question de la justice intrinsèque des normes positives s’en adjoint ainsi une autre, encore plus fondamentale peut-être, de nature épistémologique. C’est de cette critique qu’il sera question dans cet article.

Joseph Raz’s recent discussion of law’s autonomy and public practical reasons, in response to an essay by Gerald Postema, provides further illumination of Raz’s own view of the nature of law; it forcefully challenges Postema’s purported identification of the defining task of law; and it clarifies the relationships between a number of strands, or theses, that enter the debate over an appropriate theoretical model for law. It is not necessary to locate this discussion within the more general setting of the conflict between Natural Law and Positivism—nor is it in any case clear that that sharp contrast is sustainable. Within the traditionally accentuated divide between Natural Law and Positivism, to talk of the autonomy of law would be taken as a simple positivist proclamation against the subjugation of law to moral standards. What emerges from Raz’s article is a subtle interplay between different characteristics and expressions of the law, which is capable of entertaining moral influence and social objective whilst retaining clear theses that seek to capture the distinctively legal nature of the phenomenon under investigation.

In Raz’s recent article, the distinctive nature of law is still linked to an idea of autonomy expounded in terms of the sources thesis and the pre-emption thesis. The former identifies legal materials with legal sources free from the constraints of a further evaluative check, and the latter provides legal reasons to act for those subject to the law free from the consideration of further extra-legal factors. The greater sophistication of this concept of autonomy rests on the allowance Raz gives to the impact of moral factors and issues of social cooperation on legal reasoning, and his acknowledgment that legal reasoning itself is not autonomous.

The classical concept of protection of human rights is generally perceived as appertaining to the public sphere. It is concerned with the protection of the individual against the power of the State. However, current voices are heard asserting that human rights are not confined to that sphere. It is claimed that individuals are entitled to respect for their human rights not only as against the power of the state but also in their dealings with one another. Introducing human rights jurisprudence to the disciplines of private law would limit the autonomy of an individual where exercise of that autonomy would infringe the human rights of another person. Under this proposal, the rules of such fields as contract law, company law, torts law and family law, would be subject to human rights principles.

The privatising of human rights is taken by this author to infer the attribution of a review jurisdiction to the courts to override provisions of private law the application of which would bring about infringement of the human rights of individuals. It is in the nature of constitutional human rights protection to transfer the power to determine the limits of rights and powers away from the legislature and bestow it on the courts. By this conception of privatising human rights, obviously, not every protection offered by a state to individuals against interference or injury by private persons or bodies can be classified as an application of human rights in the private sphere. The protections provided by the criminal law or by torts, contract and labour law are not privatised human rights in this sense. The clarification is especially important in order to distinguish the provisions of international human rights law from a concept of constitutional privatisation. The international human rights provisions are in essence directives to governments and may be implemented by legislation. Only where they become directly applicable against private persons in the courts of the state party to the Convention can they be regarded as instances of privatising human rights. The perception of a right as a privatised human right rather than a mere application of the norms of the legal system is hence based on the source of the right in the constitutional hierarchy. In the analysis which ensues, the assumption will be made that there is a privatised human right only where that right derives directly from a constitutional power bestowed on courts. In this article, I shall employ the phrase ‘privatising human rights’ to denote this concept. As it will emerge, the use of this term is appropriate not only to denote the process but also to raise policy analogies to a more commonly known form of “privatising”—the privatising of economic activities of the state.