Rethinking Unjust Enrichment History, Sociology, Doctrine, and Theory

This inter-disciplinary volume brings together scholars from across the globe to challenge the dominant position of unjust enrichment and suggest more satisfactory alternatives.

Rethinking Unjust Enrichment includes a broad range of voices from the UK, US, Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and South America. The book includes voices of sceptics who think that the current unjust enrichment doctrine must be seriously qualified and others who think that it should be eliminated altogether.

The contributions cast doubt on the various parameters of unjust enrichment from an analytical standpoint, representing four interrelated perspectives: history, sociology, doctrine, and theory. The four-limb structure of the book provides readers with a clear understanding of the current problems of unjust enrichment at the deepest levels of its history, sociological forces, doctrinal fallacies, and normative deficiencies. This treatment of the subject serves as the basis for a comprehensive reform across jurisdictions.

Comprehensive and multi-faceted, Rethinking Unjust Enrichment is interesting to both sceptics and supporters of the unjust enrichment. It facilitates a critical and constructive dialogue between the two.

Sagi Peari, Senior Lecturer, University of Western Australia Law School, Warren Swain, Professor of Law, University of Auckland

Warren Swain is a Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland. He is Deputy Dean. Educated at Hertford College, Oxford, he lectured at Hertford College and the Universities of Birmingham and Durham in the UK and was a Professor the TC Beirne School of Law, the University of Queensland. He is a Life Member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in the UK in recognition of his contribution to historical scholarship. He has widely published on both modern private law and the history of private law.


Sagi Peari is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia Law School. His publications include two research monographs published with the Oxford University Press and his articles have been accepted for publication in leading international journals, including Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Cambridge Law Journal, University of Toronto Law Journal and the American Journal of Comparative Law. He is a recipient of the Hauser Global Fellowship at NYU Law School, and of the Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He received awards from the American Society of International Law and the Corporate Law Teachers Association of Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region.

Introduction
I. History
1. Contract and Unjust Enrichment: Lessons from History?, Warren Swain
2. A Tale of Transplantation: The Historical Evolution of the Law of Unjust Enrichment, Siyi Lin
3. Law of Unjust Enrichment in India, Arpita Gupta
II. Sociology
4. Academics and Legal Change: Birks, Savigny, and the Law of Unjust Enrichment, Sagi Peari
5. Restitution in the United States, Emily Sherwin
6. What was the Problem with Palm Tree Justice? Language, Justice, Equity and Enrichment, Nolan Sharkey
III. Theory
7. Faute de Mieux, Robert Stevens
8. Restitution, Corrective Justice, and Mistakes, James Penner
9. Agreement and Restitutionary Liability for Mistaken Payments, Peter Chau and Lusina Ho
10. Law of Unjust Enrichment or Law of Unjust De-enrichment, Lutz- Christian Wolff
11. The Way Forward, Peter Jaffey
12. Doctrinal Design in Unjust Enrichment: On the Relation of Claims for Restitution and General Private Law, Nils Jansen
IV. Doctrine
13. Monism v Pluralism in Unjust Enrichment, Mindy Chen-Wishart and Emma Hughes
14. Unjust Enrichment - Looking for a Role, Steve Hedley
15. Embracing Private Law's Miscellany? Unjustified Enrichment and the Civilian Category of Quasi- Contracts, Pablo Letelier
16. Challenges for Canadian Unjust Enrichment, Mitchell McInnes
Conclusion