ABSTRACT

The most exciting thing is the dawning realisation that the law of restitution is a larger subject than the law of unjust enrichment. It is multi-causal. Unjust enrichment is one of its causes, the most important but still only one of several. The best thing about this open recognition of its multi-causality is that it finally liberates the law of unjust enrichment from the sometimes encumbering and distracting instances of restitution triggered by other causative events. Within the law of unjust enrichment thus identified and liberated, what is most needed is a constant awareness of the particular way in which the common law has chosen to go about the characterisation of enrichment as unjust. Finally, both the law of restitution of unjust enrichment and the law of restitution for wrongs share one large problem, which is the question whether the restitutionary right takes effect as a proprietary right and, if it sometimes does, on what facts.