Study of property rights traditions wins Walter Owen Book Prize

  • December 06, 2018

A book comparing personal property law in the western and indigenous traditions is this year’s winner of the Walter Owen Book Prize, which recognizes excellent legal writing and outstanding new contributions to Canadian legal doctrine.

Yaëll Emerich is an associate professor in McGill University’s faculty of Law, where she teaches property law and secured transactions. Her book, Droit commun des biens : perspective transsystémique (Property law: a transsystemic perspective), published in 2017 by Éditions Yvon Blais, was chosen by the Canadian Foundation for Legal Research from a field of 19 entries for the $10,000 cash prize.

The prize was awarded in November during the annual holiday gathering of the Canadian Bar Association Quebec Branch in Montreal.

“At a time of globalization of law and interaction between civil law traditions, common law and Indigenous principles, this comparative work … will undoubtedly become an essential reference,” says Me Martine Valois, associate professor at l’Université de Montréal and Chair of the Walter Owen Book Prize jury.