ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines what seem to us to be the key arguments of Professor Peter Birks’ thesis. It aims to flesh out the consequences which Professor Birks’ thesis appears to throw up for the status and role of “property rights”. The chapter describes a better structural understanding of the property-unjust enrichment boundary. It presents some material which is by way of critique of Professor Birks’ analysis. The chapter offers some observations about the consequences of both Professor Birks’ understanding and our own for the concept of “ignorance”. Professor Birks is famed for the distinction he draws between events and responses. This distinction has emerged as a fundamental categorical truth in all his work on the law of restitution in particular, and on private law in general. Many adherents of the dominant model of unjust enrichment regard “ignorance” as an unjust factor.
