Right Of Necessity Research Articles

PROPERTY RIGHTS, GENES, AND COMMON GOOD

This paper applies aspects of Hugo Grotius's theologically informed theory of property to contemporary issues concerning access to the human DNA sequence and patenting practices. It argues that Christians who contribute to public debate in these areas might beneficially employ some of the concepts with which he worked--notably "common right," the "right of necessity," and "use right." In the seventeenth century, wars were fought over trading rights and access to the sea. In the twenty-first century, information and intellectual property are the issues of the day. Grotius's writings serve to correct the overemphasis in modern liberalism on individual rights, and have practical application to the debate concerning the reduction of the human genome to the status of private property.

Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf on the power of necessity to override property rights

En el presente trabajo analizo el “derecho de necesidad” que Hugo Grocio y Samuel Pufendorf reconocen a las personas que atraviesan una situación de necesidad extrema. Explicito su estatus deóntico, su base justificatoria y sus exigencias con el objetivo de evaluar sus consecuencias distributivas. Me propongo mostrar que, a pesar de la considerable atención que ambos autores prestan a la cuestión de la fuerza de la necesidad de unos individuos para sobreponerse a los derechos de propiedad de otros, las consecuencias distributivas del derecho de necesidad que justifican son poco significativas.