ABSTRACT
This chapter presents two principles of administrative liability. It shows that they were consonant with, and indeed entailed, by more general principles recognized in English law. The chapter assesses the law in the light of the two principles. Once one steps outside the field of expropriation, one finds that the principle that the burden of things done in the general interest should not be borne by individuals has little purchase. The situation in the common law is thus unpromising. But the author want to suggest that the entry into English law of Convention law via the Human Rights Act presents new possibilities. In identifying the place of this idea in Convention law, the starting point is the jurisprudence concerning the right to property. The important feature is the idea that in certain cases a public authority may be able to avoid being held to have breached a right if it pays compensation for having infringed the interest.
