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Semester 2

Private Law Theory (LAWS10172)

Subject

Law

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 3 Law courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses. This course is only open to visiting students who are nominated to study with us on a Law exchange agreement. Exchange students outside of Law and study abroad students are not eligible to enrol on this course before teaching begins, with no exceptions, and spaces cannot be guaranteed to those students at any time. **Please see Additional Restrictions**

Course Summary

This course offers the student the opportunity to reflect over fundamental questions about private law and its relation to the private sphere. Students will be invited to reflect on private law and on its relation to: (a) other areas elements of the legal system (in particular public law and criminal law), (b) different domains of social action (in particular the political and economic), (c) the ethical reasons that might justify different aspects of private law. Students will also be encouraged to reflect on (i) whether the domain of private law can be said to be a unity (in particular in view of the crucial distinction between the law of obligations and the law of property) and, if so, (ii) what brings those elements together. Students will also be encouraged to reflect on the implications of those conceptions of private law to laws development and to the interpretation of positive law (with a specific focus on examples drawn from individual legal systems, in particular Scots law). **Those general themes will provide the framework within which students will reflect on many different attempts to justify specific aspects of private law, such as Locke's justification of private property (later developed by Nozick), Hegel's justification of private property, Weinrib's conception of how contracts relate to corrective justice, and the economic analysis of the law of delict.

Course Description

Indicative teaching programme: The seminars are envisaged to cover such topics as: - The relationship between private law and the private domain of social action; - The public law/private law divide; - Private law, corrective justice and distributive justice; - Exclusive allocation of goods; - The Unity of Private Law (or why Property Law and the Law of Obligations are co-original); - Private law as an instrument (punitive and preventive roles in private law?); - Private law and recognition: from protecting the will to responding to need.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 70%, Coursework 30%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

**All 3rd year Law courses are ONLY open to visiting students nominated on an exchange agreement within the School of Law (including Erasmus students on a Law-specific exchange). Exchange students outside of Law, and independent study abroad students, are not eligible to enrol in these courses, with no exceptions.** Please note that 3rd year Law courses are high-demand, meaning that they have a very high number of students wishing to enrol in a very limited number of spaces. These enrolments are managed strictly by the CAHSS Visiting Student Office, in line with the quotas allocated by the department, and all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. It is not appropriate for students to contact the Law School directly to request additional spaces. If there is sufficient space for other visiting students to enrol at the start of the semester (which cannot be guaranteed at all), visiting students must meet the pre-requisites listed above.

view the timetable and further details for this course