New Property in International Law

Until now, the definition of property in international law has been poorly addressed. It is assumed that international law possesses sufficient content to regulate property, that provisions in international instruments addressing property rights are shown to act, and that resolutions of property disputes are claimed to be in accordance with international law. Yet, when asked to define key attributes of property in international law are, the legal world draws a collective blank.

New Property in International Law examines how international law consistently falls short when it comes to new property regulation, because key stakeholders have failed to define what property is. The book considers and categorises new property into three areas; cultural property, common property, and contingent property, aiming to carve out, update, and impart coherence to international property law. By sketching the contours of new property in international law through a rigorous analytical comparison of property concepts in the Western, Soviet, post-Soviet, Chinese and Islamic juristic traditions, this work enables a balanced distillation of core attributes of new property from diverse property concepts that can then be woven into a broadly acceptable and broadly applicable definition.

Jean Ho, Associate Professor of Law, National University of Singapore

Jean Ho is Associate Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore. She holds law degrees from New York University, l'Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Cambridge University, and is called to the Singapore and New York bars. Jean is an elected member of the Executive Council of the Asian Society of International Law and an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of International Economic Law. Her shorter works have appeared in the American Journal of International Law and in the British Yearbook of International Law. She is fluent in Mandarin and in French.