Regius Professor of Civil Law
Interests
At the moment I am particularly interested in enrichment claims arising from the theft of money: in the way in which such thefts are handled across a range of jurisdictions, and in the theoretical/normative justification for the law's response. 'Interference without Ownership (December 2021 - details below) deals with the mechanisms that South African law has developed in order to protect the victims of thefts out of bank accounts. 'Property | Unjust Enrichment' (October 2024 - details below) seeks a doctrinal explanation for Lipkin Gorman v Karpnale in the German law of unjustified enrichment. 'Chasing, Lying and Persuading: D 47.2.52.19 – 24 in Context' (December 2024 - details below) considers the concept of theft in Roman law (and the theft of incorporeals in particular) through the lens of Ulpian's Edictal Commentary. At the moment I am working on a piece that offers a theoretical justification for enrichment by taking or interference, based on the text of the WA Wilson Memorial Lecture at Edinburgh Law School ('In Defence of Ignorance') that I delivered in November 2024.
Danie Visser (UCT) and I have just finished a piece entitled 'Constitutionalising the law of unjustified enrichment' for the 2025 issue of the South African journal Constitutional Court Review. It considers in particular the decision of South African Constitutional Court in Greater Tzaneen Municipality v Bravospan, handed down in October 2024, and argues that the relationship between the South African Constitution and the common law of unjustified enrichment is and should be one of mutual beneficiation and renewal.
Research centres and interest groups
CV / Biography
Helen Scott studied classics and law at the University of Cape Town before coming to Oxford to do the BCL in 1999. She completed her DPhil in 2005, taking up a tutorial fellowship at St Catherine's College in the same year.
She then returned to South Africa, spending almost a decade at the University of Cape Town as senior lecturer, associate professor, and (from 2014) full professor. She served as head of the Department of Private Law between 2014 and 2017.
In 2017 she moved back to England, taking up a tutorial fellowship at Lady Margaret Hall as well as a titular professorship in the Oxford Law Faculty. She was elected Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge in 2022.
Her research concerns doctrinal law (mainly English and South African) as well as Roman law and civilian legal history, and spans a wide range of subject matter: not only the law of unjust/unjustified enrichment and tort/delict, but also the wider law of obligations, property and trusts.
She is Chair of Part II Examiners for the Law Tripos and General Editor of the Cambridge Law Journal.
Selected publications
Books
Private Law in a Changing World: Essays for Danie Visser (also published as Acta Juridica [2019]) (ed), 2019)
Iniuria and the Common Law (ed), 2013)
Unjust Enrichment in South African Law: Rethinking Enrichment by Transfer , 2013)
Articles
"Unjust enrichment in South Africa" Lloyds Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly (2024) 663–72
"Unjust enrichment in South Africa" Lloyds Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly [2023] 656–69
"Undue Transfer under Error (the Condictio Indebiti)" (2022) 26 Edinburgh Law Review 403–408
"Interference without ownership: the theft of incorporeal money in the South African law of unjustified enrichment" [2021] Acta Juridica 343–73
"Change and continuity in the law of unjust enrichment" [2019] Acta Juridica 469–92
"The History of Foreseeability" (2019) 72 Current Legal Problems 287–314
"Transforming the South African Law of Unjustified Enrichment" (2017) 25 Restitution Law Review 29–43
"Rationalising the South African Law of Enrichment" (2014) 18 Edinburgh Law Review 433–51
"Killing and Causing Death in Roman Law" (2013) 129 Law Quarterly Review 101–22
"Excess baggage? Rethinking Risk Allocation in the Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment" (2012) 92 Boston University Law Review 859–83
"Absolute ownership and legal pluralism in Roman law: Two arguments" Acta Juridica [2011] 23–34
"The requirement of excusable mistake in the context of the condictio indebiti: Scottish and South African law compared" (2007) 124 South African Law Journal 827–66
"Liability for the mass publication of private information in South African law: NM v Smith (Freedom of Expression Institute as Amicus Curiae)" (2007) 18 Stellenbosch Law Review 387–404
"Omnes unius aestimemus assis: A Note on Liability for Defamation in Catullus V" (2006) 3 Roman Legal Tradition 95–110
"Restitution of extra-contractual transfers: limits of the absence of legal ground analysis" (2006) 14 Restitution Law Review 93–105
"State Liability under Francovich for Decisions of National Courts" (2004) 120 Law Quarterly Review 403–406
Book Chapters
"Chasing, Lying and Persuading: D 47.2.52.19 – 24 in Context" in Joe Sampson and Stelios Tofaris (ed(s)), Essays in Law and History for David Ibbetson, 2024), pp. 17–33
"Property | Unjust Enrichment" in William Day and Julius Grower (ed(s)), Borderlines in Private Law, 2024), pp. 247–268
"'Mistake of Law, Again'" in Edwin Peel and Rebecca Probert (ed(s)), Shaping the Law of Obligations: Essays in Honour of Professor Ewan McKendrick, 2023), pp. 339–349
"'What Mistake Can Do'" in Nils Jansen and Sonja Meier (ed(s)), Iurium Itinera: Historische Rechtsvergleichung und vergleichende Rechtsgeschichte , 2022), pp. 627–649
"Comparative taxonomy: an introduction" in Elise Bant, Kit Barker and Simone Degeling (ed(s)), Research Handbook on Unjust Enrichment and Restitution , 2020), pp. 145–66
"Lord Atkin, Donoghue v Stevenson and the Lex Aquilia: Civilian Roots of the “Neighbour” Principle" (with Robin Evans Jones ) in Paul J du Plessis (ed(s)), Wrongful Damage to Property in Roman Law , 2018), pp. 255–74
"Reflections on the Restitution Revolution: South Africa" in Sarah Worthington, Andrew Robertson and Graham Virgo (ed(s)), Revolution and Evolution in Private Law , 2018), pp. 210–18
"Regulating Risk Through Private Law: South Africa" (with Anton Fagan) in Matthew Dyson (ed(s)), Regulating Risk Through Private Law, 2018), pp. 223–52
"The Death of Doctrine?—Private Law Scholarship in South African Today" in Jürgen Basedow, Holger Fleischer and Reinhard Zimmermann (ed(s)), Legislators, Judges, and Professors , 2016), pp. 223–248
"Defence, Denial or Cause of Action? “Enrichment Owed” and the Absence of a Legal Ground " in Andrew Dyson, James Goudkamp and Frederick Wilmot-Smith (ed(s)), Defences in Unjust Enrichment , 2016), pp. 53–68
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