Community-based individual property rights: developing the ‘bundle of rights’ perspective in the Chinese context

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article invokes a concept of ‘community-based individual property rights’ as individual property rights recognized in a communal property system by virtue of community membership. It employs mixed methods, including a comparative analysis that reviews and develops the ‘bundle of rights’ perspective in the Chinese context and an analysis of a large dataset of judgments recently made publicly accessible. It sets out an analytical framework which appears more advantageous in helping researchers arrive at a better explanation of the current rights structure in rural China. The article concludes that the concept of ‘community-based individual property rights’ has greater analytical and explanatory force than existing concepts based on continental civil law. The conclusion also challenges the common assumption that common law property theories never work in non-common law jurisdictions and that the Chinese property system is irrelevant to developing common law property theories.