ABSTRACT
These examples no doubt qualify as genuine remedies in that one person is directly reacting to a breach of obligation by the other party. Yet, the idea of self-help has a more extended meaning as well. What if one party brings non legal pressure on another party in order to make the latter perform his legal – or what is claimed by the first party to be his legal – obligation? Or what if one person digs holes on his land in order to bring pressure on his neighbour to act in a certain way? Or what if employees go on strike for better working conditions? All these acts of ‘taking the law into one’s own hands’ could be seen as a kind of non-judicial ‘remedy’. And if they are held to be justified – that is to say if the self-help act does not of itself amount to a breach of the law – then it becomes feasible to see such acts as a form of self-help remedy. In fact whether or not the self-help action is justified often depends upon the way the problem is analysed and categorised within (or without) the law of obligations itself.
