Persons, parts and property

by Imogen Goold

"The debate over whether human bodies and their parts should be governed by the laws of property has accelerated with the pace of technological change. The common law first recognised that there could be a property interest in human tissue in some circumstances in the early 1900s, but it was not until a string of judicial decisions and statutory regulation in the 1990s and early 2000s that the place of this 'exception' was cemented. The 2009 decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in Yearworth & Ors v North Bristol NHS Trust added a new dimension to the debate by supporting a...