Besitzschutz in Europa

In most legal systems, it is not only the owner of property who is protected from being deprived of it or from exercising the actual control over it, but also the person who merely has actual control over the property. Therese Müller provides a comparative analysis of how this protection is structured in substantive and procedural law in various European legal systems. She analyzes the very different goals actually pursued with the protection of the virtual control over property, whose right to exist has repeatedly been doubted in the past. Based on this, the author advocates the inclusion of regulations to protect possession in a potential common European civil code and establishes the basic principles for a practicable and consistent regulation of the protection of possession.