Your best bet is to set an OnHit event handler with OBSE, filtered so that it checks that the attacker has no weapons equipped (GetEquippedObject 16 == 0) and that he is not casting a spell (AnimPathIncludes "cast" == 0, if I remember right)
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36374 which adds elemental effects to punches using that method, you can look into it and reverse engineer it to suit your needs if you feel up to it.