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knowing exactly what they can and cannot lawfully do in respect of the property in question.

6.3.2.2.Ownership as a contested concept

While providing an appreciation of its complexity, dividing ownership, as we have done, into a number of separate roles is also liable to distort the concept by presenting an overly compartmentalised view which underplays its dynamism. As you will have begun to appreciate when we considered the difficulties of ownership in section 6.1 above, there is no general agreement on this issue, and this final role focuses on the contest that ensues. For, as Waldron suggests, quoting the political philosopher W. B. Gallie, it is possible to view ownership as one of those ‘concepts whose proper use inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users’ (Gallie, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’). Such debate is inextricably linked to the concept of ownership. Whenever we speak of it, we are to an extent engaging in a contest as to its true meaning, and this discourse is as crucial to the concept as each of the previous roles we have identified.

6.4. The limitations of ownership

Ownership in practice never invests the owner with complete control over the thing owned. All ownership of things is subject to limitations which differ in accordance with the practical, social and historical circumstances surrounding the particular object of property in question. Thus the limitations which arise in respect of the ownership of a piece of land are different from the limitations which apply to the ownership of this book or, for that matter, its copyright. However, no matter how diverse the types of property or the limitations that arise in respect of them, it remains true that ownership of anything is subject to some kind of limitation. These essentially negative restrictions are, as Honore´ argued, as much an aspect of ownership as the positive rights normally associated with the term, and it is for this reason we have entitled this section the ‘limitations of ownership’, rather than the more usual ‘limitations on ownership’.

Limitations as to the use of property exist both in the public law and the private law fields, and are normally imposed as a matter of public policy but can on occasion arise by agreement. To examine how these various types of limitation dovetail and interact, we will consider land use restrictions (with the exception of planning law) which provide a particularly graphic illustration of the reasons why limitations on property are an essential aspect of ownership.

6.4.1.Nuisance

Historically, the use of land has been regulated by means of the law of nuisance. Today, while still the principal common law mechanism in this field, its significance has been much diminished by developments in both the private and public law spheres, such as restrictive covenants and planning and environmental