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Full-Text Articles in Comparative and Foreign Law

Property, Unbundled Water Entitlements, And Anticommons Tragedies: A Cautionary Tale From Australia, Paul Babie, Paul Leadbeter, Kyriaco Nikias Mar 2020

Property, Unbundled Water Entitlements, And Anticommons Tragedies: A Cautionary Tale From Australia, Paul Babie, Paul Leadbeter, Kyriaco Nikias

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

As water becomes an increasingly scarce resource, a lack of clarity in relation to its use can produce both conflict among and inefficient use by users. In order to encourage markets in water and to ensure the viability and functionality of those markets, governments in many jurisdictions have moved away from commons property as a means of water allocation, and towards systems of private property in water. In doing so, one policy and legal option is “unbundling”, which seeks carefully to define both the entitlement to water and its separation into constituent parts. Advocates claim that unbundling makes water rights …


On Black South Africans, Black Americans, And Black West Indians: Some Thoughts On We Want What’S Ours, Eleanor Marie Lawrence Brown Apr 2016

On Black South Africans, Black Americans, And Black West Indians: Some Thoughts On We Want What’S Ours, Eleanor Marie Lawrence Brown

Michigan Law Review

Most modern constitutions have eminent domain provisions that mandate just compensation for forced deprivations of land and require such deprivations to be for a public use or public purpose. The Takings Clause is a classic example of such a provision. The takings literature is essentially focused on outlining the outer boundaries within which the state can take property from an owner. But there are other takings that have been deemed “extraordinary”; in such circumstances, the state takes away property without just compensation and simultaneously makes a point about a person or a group’s standing in the community of citizens.


An Analysis Of Article 28 Of The United Nations Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples, And Proposals For Reform, David Fautsch Jan 2010

An Analysis Of Article 28 Of The United Nations Declaration On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples, And Proposals For Reform, David Fautsch

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this Note is two-fold: first, to demonstrate why the standards set out in Article 28 require further clarification, and second, to propose reforms (both inside and outside of the United Nations framework) that might benefit indigenous peoples claiming land rights.


Property Rights & The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene Jan 2010

Property Rights & The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene

Michigan Journal of International Law

Countries like those in Southern Africa will never emerge from the indomitable shadow of inequity and the serious threat of backlash unless real property is redistributed; but, the conception of property these countries explicitly or implicitly adopt can adversely affect their ability to redistribute. Under the classical conception of real property (the classical conception), redistribution is difficult because title deed holders are a privileged group who are given nearly absolute property protection. Strangely, the classical conception is ascendant in many transitional states where redistribution is essential. The specific question this Article addresses is: for states where past property dispossession has …


Re-Examining The Role Of Private Property In Market Democracies:Problematic Ideological Issues Raised By Land Registration, Joel M. Ngugi Jan 2004

Re-Examining The Role Of Private Property In Market Democracies:Problematic Ideological Issues Raised By Land Registration, Joel M. Ngugi

Michigan Journal of International Law

In the post-1989 world, the primacy of private property is taken for granted. The final fall of communism, it would seem, is an adequate commentary of the supremacy of private property arrangements in facilitating economic development. Debates pitting plan (with its associated appetite for communal or collective property) against market (with its avowed belief in private property) are now considered superfluous. As far as the "Western world" was concerned, it seemed that the task of persuading the rest of the world that private property is the key to efficient market performance and economic development had finally been accomplished. The only …


Home And Homelessness In The Middle Of Nowhere, William I. Miller Jan 2004

Home And Homelessness In The Middle Of Nowhere, William I. Miller

Book Chapters

In Iceland one must have a home; it is an offense not to-in some circumstances, a capital offense. A sturdy beggar was liable for full outlawry, which meant he could be killed with impunity. The laws are hard on vagrants. Fornication with a beggar woman was unactionable; it was lawful to castrate a vagabond, and he had no claim if he were injured or killed during the operation. One could take in beggars solely for the purpose of whipping them, nor was one to feed or shelter them at the Thing on pain of lesser outlawry. Their booths at the …


Land And Liberation: Lessons For The Creation Of Effective Land Reform Policy In South Africa, Hasani Claxton Jan 2003

Land And Liberation: Lessons For The Creation Of Effective Land Reform Policy In South Africa, Hasani Claxton

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Based upon the premise that land reform is essential to creating socio-economic equality, easing racial tensions and stemming the tide of violence in South Africa, this note will provide suggestions for effective land reform policy. To accomplish this, this Note will examine the paths taken by several other transitional African governments in land reform policy. It will attempt to extract practical lessons from their experiences and apply them towards the development of effective land redistribution policy in South Africa. Part I of this note will provide a historical overview of colonialism and land law in Africa. Part II will examine …


A Property Theory Perspective On Russian Enterprise Reform, Michael Heller Jan 2001

A Property Theory Perspective On Russian Enterprise Reform, Michael Heller

Book Chapters

Why have Russian enterprises performed so poorly since privatization? This is a problem with many answers, each independently sufficient: the bleak mix includes vacillating macroeconomic policy, endemic corruption, a corrosive tax structure, poor human capital, and so forth. Even well-performing companies must hide good results because visible profits or dividends provoke confiscatory taxation and mafia visits. In such a difficult environment, the rule of law generally, and corporate governance in particular, may seem not to count. Macroeconomic implosions dwarf subtle distinctions in corporate dividend rules or minority voting rights.


The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller Jan 1998

The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller

Articles

Why are many storefronts in Moscow empty, while street kiosks in front are full of goods? In this Article, Professor Heller develops a theory of anticommons property to help explain the puzzle of empty storefronts and full kiosks. Anticommons property can be understood as the mirror image of commons property. By definition, in a commons, multiple owners are each endowed with the privilege to use a given resource, and no one has the right to exclude another When too many owners hold such privileges of use, the resource is prone to overuse - a tragedy of the commons. Depleted fisheries …


Reforming The State-Enterprise Property Relationship In The People's Republic Of China: The Corporatization Of State-Owned Enterprises, Deborah Kay Johns Jan 1995

Reforming The State-Enterprise Property Relationship In The People's Republic Of China: The Corporatization Of State-Owned Enterprises, Deborah Kay Johns

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part I of this Note first describes the problems that have prodded China to restructure its SOEs and then explains the root of those problems - the state-enterprise property relationship. This part concludes with a description of the unsuccessful attempts to date to reform that relationship. To understand why these efforts have met with little success, Part II explores the way in which most transition economies have attempted to address the ambiguity in the state-enterprise property relationship, by abolishing it through privatization. Although privatization is neither economically nor ideologically suited to China, experience with privatization does hold one lesson for …


Judicial Review Of The Compensation Law In Hungary, Peter Paczolay Jan 1992

Judicial Review Of The Compensation Law In Hungary, Peter Paczolay

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article analyzes the Hungarian Constitutional Court's decisions regarding a specific problem of property rights, namely the Compensation Law. It does not attempt to examine the details of broad subjects such as property rights or privatization.


A Bitter Inheritance: East German Real Property And The Supreme Constitutional Court's "Land Reform" Decision Of April 23, 1991, Jonathan J. Doyle Jan 1992

A Bitter Inheritance: East German Real Property And The Supreme Constitutional Court's "Land Reform" Decision Of April 23, 1991, Jonathan J. Doyle

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article briefly examines the principal expropriatory measures undertaken between 1945 and 1989, the agreements between the two German governments relating thereto, and the divisive constitutional issues raised by this fusion of two antithetical legal systems in the area of property law. The text concludes with an analysis of the German Supreme Court's "Land Reform" decision and the juridical controversy surrounding it.


The Czechoslovak Approach To The Draft Convention On Jurisdictional Immunitites Of States And Their Property, Vladimir Balaš, Monika Pauknerová Jan 1991

The Czechoslovak Approach To The Draft Convention On Jurisdictional Immunitites Of States And Their Property, Vladimir Balaš, Monika Pauknerová

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article deals with four issues: (1) The effort of the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify jurisdictional immunity. (2) The theoretical and practical Czechoslovak approach toward the institution of jurisdictional immunity of States and the Draft Convention, and a prediction of possible change of the Czechoslovak view. (3) The changing views of East European scholars. (4) An analysis of particular provisions of the Draft Convention with respect to their acceptability by States with different socioeconomic systems and especially by Czechoslovakia.


Transfers Of Property In Eleventh-Century Norman Law, William John Gallagher May 1989

Transfers Of Property In Eleventh-Century Norman Law, William John Gallagher

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law by Emily Zack Tabuteau


Some Aspects Of Householding In The Medieval Icelandic Commonwealth, William I. Miller Jan 1988

Some Aspects Of Householding In The Medieval Icelandic Commonwealth, William I. Miller

Articles

There has been much, mostly inconclusive, discussion about how to define the household in a manner suitable for comparative purposes. Certain conventional criteria are not very useful in the Icelandic context, where it appears that a person could be attached to more than one household, where the laws suggest it was possible for more than one household to be resident in the same uncompartmentalised farmhouse; and where headship might often be shared. Definitions, for example, based on co residence or on commensalism do not jibe all that well with the pastoral transhumance practised by the Icelanders. Sheep were tended and …


Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid: Case Studies In The Negotiation And Classification Of Exchange In Medieval Iceland, William I. Miller Jan 1986

Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid: Case Studies In The Negotiation And Classification Of Exchange In Medieval Iceland, William I. Miller

Articles

Near the end of Eyrbyggja saga Porir asks Ospak and his men where they had gotten the goods they were carrying. Ospak said that they had gotten them at Pambardal. "How did you come by them?" said Porir. Ospak answered, "They were not given, they were not paid to me, nor were they sold either." Ospak had earlier that evening raided the house of a farmer called Alf and made away with enough to burden four horses. And this was exactly what he told Porir when he wittily eliminated the other modes of transfer by which he could have acquired …


The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study, Second Edition. Volume One. Introduction: Family Law, Ernst Rabel Jan 1958

The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study, Second Edition. Volume One. Introduction: Family Law, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Legal Studies Series

This volume, the first in Ernst Rabel's monumental comparative treatise on the conflict of laws, was initially published in 1945. Since then three additional volumes have been added, completing the survey of the systems of conflicts law as originally contemplated. Meanwhile, the first edition of the first two volumes has been exhausted for some time, and the literature of conflicts law has substantially increased, reflecting the new developments that have taken place since 1945. Accordingly, plans for a new edition of the first two volumes were discussed with the author before his death on September 7, I955, and were approved …


The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study. Volume Four Property: Bills And Notes: Inheritance: Trusts: Application Of Foreign Law: Lntertemporal Relations, Ernst Rabel Jan 1958

The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study. Volume Four Property: Bills And Notes: Inheritance: Trusts: Application Of Foreign Law: Lntertemporal Relations, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Legal Studies Series

With this fourth and final volume, the monumental survey of existing systems of conflicts law, initiated by the late Ernst Rabel in 1939 under the auspices of the American Law Institute but conducted after 1942 through the generous sponsorship of the University of Michigan Law School, is completed. It is most fortunate that, despite the fact that the present volume was prepared in various institutions during the years immediately preceding the author's death on September 7, 1955, he not only finished but also revised the proofs of the text; the various tables were later compiled at Ann Arbor.


Foreign Personal Representatives, Banks Mcdowell Jr. Jan 1957

Foreign Personal Representatives, Banks Mcdowell Jr.

Michigan Legal Studies Series

In dealing with the legal rules affecting foreign personal representatives, the author of the present monograph is to be commended for the lucid analysis in the following pages of the principal questions that an executor or administrator appointed in one state will encounter in the administration of a single estate on a multi-jurisdictional basis: his right to sue and liability to suit in other states, the effects of his extra-legal action outside the state of his appointment, and the possibilities of reforming existing laws so as to make feasible a system of single administration of decedents' estates. This analysis is …


Skeie: Odelsretten Og Aseteretten, Nils B. Skavang Jun 1953

Skeie: Odelsretten Og Aseteretten, Nils B. Skavang

Michigan Law Review

A Review of ODELSRETTEN OG ASETERETTEN By Jon Skeie.


Real Property-Notice-Recitals In Unrecorded Deeds In Chain Of Title, James S. Taylor Mar 1952

Real Property-Notice-Recitals In Unrecorded Deeds In Chain Of Title, James S. Taylor

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff, Eiring, owner of all rights in a tract of land, attempted to convey certain mineral rights to Earnest by deed. The alleged rights passed from Earnest by subsequent mesne conveyances to McMillan, and, on the death of McMillan, to the defendant as trustee. Eiring brought an action against the defendant in statutory trespass to try title to the land. In the deed from Eiring to Earnest blank spaces were left in the granting clause. Held, the blank spaces rendered the deed void, and the deficiency was not cured by reference to another indefinite deed. After holding this, …


Restraints On Alienation Of Legal Interests In Michigan Property: I, William F. Fratcher Mar 1952

Restraints On Alienation Of Legal Interests In Michigan Property: I, William F. Fratcher

Michigan Law Review

During the century and a half which followed the Norman Conquest, the owner of land who attempted to transfer it might meet with opposition from three interested parties, his feudal overlord, his heir apparent and his tenant. His feudal overlord might object to a transfer by way of substitution, that is, one under the terms of which the transferor did not retain a reversion; because the proposed transferee was not a suitable person to perform the feudal services due for the land. As these services were frequently of a personal or military nature such an objection was not necessarily captious. …


Soviet Law Of Inheritance: Ii, Vladimir Gsovski Jan 1947

Soviet Law Of Inheritance: Ii, Vladimir Gsovski

Michigan Law Review

Wills. Neither the Civil Code nor any other statute sets forth any specific requirements for capacity to make a will. Therefore, the soviet jurists deem any person who is generally competent to enter into legal transactions (Civil Code, Section 8) capable of making a will. Thus, minors under the age of eighteen years and persons adjudged unable to manage their affairs because of mental disease or weak-mindedness do not have testamentary capacity. Likewise, a will executed by a testator while "in a state of mind which precluded his understanding the significance of his acts," has no validity (id., Section 3r).


The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study. Volume One. Introduction: Family Law, Ernst Rabel Jan 1945

The Conflict Of Laws: A Comparative Study. Volume One. Introduction: Family Law, Ernst Rabel

Michigan Legal Studies Series

Full application of comparative methods to the law of conflicts requires a working plan of some magnitude. We ought to take stock of the conflicts rules existing in the different countries of the world, state their similarities or dissimilarities, and investigate their purposes and effects. The solutions thus ascertained should moreover be subjected to an estimation of their usefulness, by the standards appropriate to their natural objective. Conflicts rules have to place private life and business relations upon the legal background suitable to satisfactory intercourse among states and nations. They are valuable to the extent that their practical functioning, rather …


Rule Against Perpetuities As Applied To Options, John R. Rood Jan 1916

Rule Against Perpetuities As Applied To Options, John R. Rood

Articles

Does the rule against perpetuities render unlimited options void? This is a question which the English courts answered affirmatively some thirty-five years ago; new aspects of the question have been frequently presented to those courts since that time, and conclusions not easy to reconcile have been reached. It is believed that the present status of the law in England is that an option is like any other interest in land, void if it may arise at too remote a time, otherwise not. This conclusion is based on the decision in Borland's Trustees v. Steel Bros. & Co. [1901] 1 Ch. …


Note And Comment, Edson R. Sunderland, Henry M. Bates, Harry B. Hutchins, John R. Rood, James H. Brewster, James H. Brewster Feb 1906

Note And Comment, Edson R. Sunderland, Henry M. Bates, Harry B. Hutchins, John R. Rood, James H. Brewster, James H. Brewster

Michigan Law Review

Constitutional Privileges in the Philippine Islands; A Laudatory Publication as a Cause of Action; The Cy-Pres Doctrine; Duty of Vendee to See to Investment of Funds; the Power to Declare a forfeiture and Sell Property Used in Violation of a Statute; Dying Declarations; "Juvenile Courts" and Jury Trials for Neglected, Delinquent, Children;