About the Speaker

Konstanze von Schütz is an Assistant Professor at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. Her research and writing focus on private law and private law theory, particularly the law of property. Konstanze’s work seeks to account for the ways in which private law expresses and implements ideas about how people can relate to one another under its rules and institutions. In canvassing the rationales that underlie and animate private law concepts and ideas, she draws on insights from comparative law, legal history, as well as legal and political philosophy to illuminate the doctrine. Konstanze’s current research projects focus on lesser and limited property rights and on public property. Prior to joining McGill Law, Konstanze was a Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory  and Private Law Fellow at Yale Law School’s Center for Private Law. Since 2022, she is co-chairing the Young Property Lawyers’ Forum (YPLF). Konstanze trained in Germany and Canada. She holds an LL.B. from Bucerius Law School (Hamburg, Germany), the two German “Staatsexamina” (State Examinations in Law), as well as an LL.M. and an S.J.D. from the University of Toronto.

Abstract

Private property is often associated with independence and autonomy, but also with exclusion and inequality. In contrast, public property is typically seen as promoting inclusion and equal participation in decision-making, and is often equated with public space. However, even a brief examination of the legal frameworks for public property across different jurisdictions reveals that public property is neither necessarily accessible to everyone nor necessarily subject to inclusive governance rules. Additionally, public spaces are increasingly privately owned. While legal systems generally distinguish between private and public property, the legal regimes for public property vary significantly among jurisdictions. Furthermore, the rules governing public property differ not only across jurisdictions but regularly also across different areas of law within the same jurisdiction.

My presentation will examine the diversity of public property(s). I will explore whether these differences reflect fundamentally different understandings of what constitutes public property, or if there are shared underlying values that can help define a unified concept of public property. I will focus on trying to identify the key features of public property in law, considering notably whether these features pertain to substance (the interest in specific uses by and for the public) or structure (the requirement to provide (public) reasons). Ultimately, as I will argue, uncovering the theoretical foundations of public property can also enhance our comprehension of private property, both in terms of its distinction from public property and its distinctive core principles and values.

Registration 

The lecture will  be held in the Research Seminar room  (A3.01) and online via zoom. To register online, please click on the button below.