Lessons from the Making of Modern Property: Reinventing Roman Law in Europe and Its Peripheries, 1789–1950

This article examines the evolution and reinvention of Roman law concepts in shaping modern property law across Europe and its peripheries between 1789 and 1950. Focusing on Anna di Robilant’s analysis, it explores how nineteenth-century jurists utilized the ideal of dominium—property as an individual’s absolute entitlement—to respond to the social and economic upheavals of the era. While this model emphasized personal autonomy, freedom, and equality, it was inherently in tension with the demands of collective needs and societal change. The article discusses the practical and philosophical clashes between dominium and the social function of property, tracing the historical debates and their implications for contemporary constitutional property jurisprudence, especially in the United States.

It argues that a dynamic property system must reconcile both the protection of individual rights and the necessity of adapting to evolving public interests, revealing the complexity and inherent contradictions in modern property law.