Jusletter

Nearly twenty years ago, in a casual footnote at the end of an important essay, an American property scholar, Charles Donahue, drew a distinction between «property as a sword», and «property as a shield». Donahue’s distinction symbolized an important difference between two facets of the institution – as well as the execution – of property rights; suggesting that property rights can be used for both defensive and offensive purposes in relationships with third parties.