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A critical aspect of the commitment to the rule of law is the definition and protection of property rights ie, rights to control, use, or transfer things including rights in intangibles such as intellectual property. The law reflects two general policies in its efforts to regulate conduct; one is a policy of simply not tolerating certain acts or types of conduct and the other is a policy of internalisation, which requires transgressors of the law to compensate victims for their injuries. Cooter (1984) has described the distinction as being between „sanctions“, which is a detriment imposed for doing what is forbidden and „prices“, which is an amount of money exacted for doing what is permitted. The distinction between these two general principles can be traced back to Calabresi and Melamed’s seminal article “Property Rules, Liability Rules and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral” (1972) which coined the terminology property rules and liability rules. Property rules secure entitlements as property and prohibit non consensual transfers’ whereas liabilty rules while not seeking to provide the security of a property rule instead, require the injurer to pay a quantum of damages determined by a state body. Property rules seek, as Bentham stated, to secure and to settle expectations with respect to an entitlement whereas liability rules endeavour to reallocate, ex post, the burden of a loss.

Calabresi & Melamed provided a theory on the meaning of property rules, liability rules and inalienability as alternative mechanisms for protecting legal entitlements. They argued that legal rules may protect a legal entitlement in two main ways: by forbidding any taking without the owner’s prior consent (property rule) or by imposing on a taker the duty to compensate owners for an infringement (liability rules). They postulated the prescriptive view that property rules are preferred when transaction costs are low or when bargaining is possible while liability rules…

Schlagworte

Verleumdung, Reputation, Persönlichkeitsrecht, Schadensersatz, Common Law, Anglo-amerikanisches Rechtssystem, Wirtschaftswissenschaft, Rechtswissenschaft