The Foundations Of Unjust Enrichment

Six public lectures given by Peter Birks when he was the Centennial Visiting Fellow at the Victoria University of Wellington Law School in August and September 1999.

Introduction /Robert Chambers, Charles Mitchell, and James Penner --Correctively unjust enrichment /Ernest J Weinrib --Restitution's realism /Hanoch Dagan --The normative foundations of unjust enrichment /Dennis Klimchuk --Resisting temptations to 'justice' /Mitchell McInnes --The nature of responsibility for gain : gain, harm, and keeping the lid on Pandora's box /Kit Barker --Unjust enrichment : nearer to tort than contract /Stephen A. Smith --The meaning of loss and enrichment /James Edelman --Two kinds of enrichment /Robert Chambers --Philosophical foundations of proprietary remedies /Lionel Smith --Value, property, and unjust enrichment : trusts of traceable proceeds /James Penner --Property, unjust enrichment and defective transfers /Charlie Webb --'Mistakes of law' and legal reasoning : interpreting Kleinwort Benson v Lincoln City Council /Aruna Nair --Unjust enrichment and the idea of public law /Charles Mitchell and Peter Oliver --Unconscionable enrichment? /Prince Saprai.

This volume takes stock of the rapid changes to the law of unjust enrichment over the last decade. It offers original contributions from leading private law theorists examining the philosophical foundations of the law.

Foundations of Private Law is a treatise on the Western law of property, contract, tort and unjust enrichment in both common law systems and civil law systems. The thesis of the book is that underlying these fields of law are common principles, and that these principles can be used to explain the history and development of these areas. These underlying common principles are matters of common sense, which were given their archetypal expression by older jurists who wrote in the Aristotelian tradition. These principles shaped the development of Western law but can resolve legal problems which these older writers did not confront.

This book is a collection of articles based on Understanding Unjust Enrichment,a symposium held at the University of Western Ontario in January 2003. The articles, written from the perspective of English, Australian, Canadian, German and Jewish law, deal with numerous theoretical and practical issues that surround restitution and unjust enrichment. The articles outline recent developments across the Commonwealth, explain the unjust enrichment principle and its component parts, and address discrete issues such as tracing, choice of law, disgorgement damages for breach of contract, and the use of unjust enrichment in the cohabitation context. The contributors are Kit Barker, Peter Benson, Jeffrey Berryman, Michael Bryan, Andrew Burrows, Robert Chambers, Gerald Fridman, Peter Jaffey, Dennis Klimchuk, Thomas Krebs, John McCamus, Mitchell McInnes, Stephen Pitel, Stephen Waddams and Ernest Weinrib.

This comprehensive yet accessible Research Handbook offers an expert guide to the key concepts, principles and debates in the modern law of unjust enrichment and restitution.

This book is the second in a series of essay collections on defences in private law. It addresses defences to liability arising in unjust enrichment. The essays are written from a range of perspectives and methodologies. Some are doctrinal, others are theoretical, and several offer comparative insights. The most important defence in this area of the law, change of position, is addressed in detail, but many other defences are treated too, as well as the interrelations between these defences within the law of unjust enrichment. The essays offer novel claims and ways of looking at problems in this challenging area of legal study.