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Property Law and Real Estate

Series

2014

Public lands

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

No Entry To The Public Lands: Towards A Theory Of A Public Trust Servitude For A Way Over Abutting Private Land, Shelby D. Green Jan 2014

No Entry To The Public Lands: Towards A Theory Of A Public Trust Servitude For A Way Over Abutting Private Land, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article explores the problem of inadequate access and why owners of private property abutting public lands cannot fence out the public if their sole or primary purpose is to deny access to public land. The reasons why such landowners should not be allowed to put up fences, even on their own land, if the effect is to hinder the public's access to public land are several. First, it is opportunistic and unjustly interferes with citizens' ability to enjoy the interest they hold in public lands. Second, it denies citizens access rights rooted in the common law. Third, and perhaps …


The Durability Of Private Claims To Public Property, Bruce R. Huber Jan 2014

The Durability Of Private Claims To Public Property, Bruce R. Huber

Journal Articles

Property rights and resource use are closely related. Scholarly inquiry about their relation, however, tends to emphasize private property arrangements while ignoring public property — property formally owned by government. The well-known tragedies of the commons and anticommons, for example, are generally analyzed with reference to the optimal form and degree of private ownership. But what about property owned by the state? The federal government alone owns nearly one-third of the land area of the United States. One could well ask: is there a tragedy associated with public property, too? If there is, here is what it might look like: …