What place for stories of property? Property in regional human rights case law

This chapter explores how human rights adjudicators in regional systems discuss and interpret the right to property, particularly focusing on the influence of liberal notions of property and the extent to which they depart from such assumptions. It examines the role of location-specific context in determining the human right to property and assesses whether marginalized and underrepresented voices are considered. It also highlights the different discursive patterns and perspectives found in the regional systems. The analysis includes the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR). It shows that the ECtHR’s commitment to both human rights and liberal European values makes it so that the European right to property is easily confused with domestic property rights, while the IACtHR and the ACHPR, strongly committed to their role as international institutions, have allowed greater space to alternative stories of property.