ABSTRACT
Intellectual property laws replace sovereign claims with rights to protect 'traditional knowledge', 'traditional cultural expressions' and 'benefit-sharing' from innovation instead of engaging with Aboriginal law as law. The history of English diaspora through the enclosure of the commons and the transportation of convicts to foreign lands is one side of that transformation – the colonisation of the lands and peoples of those foreign lands is the other side – both were premised on the anthropocentrism of the dominant culture and the attendant placelessness of law. The dominance of the placeless property paradigm in Australian law is well illustrated in the failed cultural heritage protection actions surrounding development at Kumerangk in South Australia. The dephysicalisation of property law is important to understand because in addition to explaining the economic and political rationale of property as a rights-based institution, it also serves to remind legal scholars that property law is self-referential and self-authorising.
