Abstract:
I am pleased to have the opportunity to comment on two very rich and provocative articles: Property in the Post-post-revolution: Notes on the Crisis of the Constitutional Idea of Property in Contemporary Mexico by Antonio Azuela and The Unending Quest for Land: The Tale of Broken Constitutional Promises by Helena Alviar García. Both articles offer historical and contemporary accounts of the role of the social function of property in the constitutional framework of the countries they study (Mexico for Azuela and Colombia for Alviar).
I begin this Commentary with a few general thoughts on comparative method, and then engage in a comparison of the articles by discussing three issues they raise. In particular, I consider the tension between individual property rights and social function examined in each article, the possibilities the authors imagine for collective rights and conservation within the property rights regimes they examine, and the views about the role of law the articles express.
Engle, Karen, Comparative Constitutional Law and Property: Responses to Alviar and Azuela (2011). Texas Law Review, Vol. 89, No. 7, 2011.
