Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Contesting Property Rights: Towards An Integrated Theory Of Institutional And System Change, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Scholarship

It is widely recognized that institutions are embedded in social systems and that institutions as well as social systems change over time. Several implications follow: First, institutions cannot be described and analyzed without referring to the system in which they operate; conversely, a system cannot be described without reference to its core institutions. Second, systems foster institutional change and can breed new institutions. Third, institutional change can have systemic implications and may even engender the formation of new systems. In short, the relation between institutions and systems is characterized by complex interactions. A better understanding of the dynamics of institutional …

Rethinking The Laws Of Good Faith Purchase, Alan Schwartz, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay is a comparative economic analysis of the disparate doctrines governing the good faith purchase of stolen or misappropriated goods. We argue that prior treatments have misconceived the problem. An owner will take optimal precautions to prevent theft if she is faced with the loss of her goods; and a purchaser will make an optimal investigation into his seller's title if faced with the loss of the goods. An owner and a buyer cannot both be faced with the full loss, however. This presents a problem of "double moral hazard" and it cannot be solved in a first-best efficient …

Laying To Rest An Ancien Régime: Antiquated Institutions In Louisiana Civil Law And Their Incompatibility With Modern Public Policies, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Man faces unprecedented challenges as he barrels through the twenty-first century. The world is now approaching a population of seven billion people, concentrated largely in crowded, overdeveloped urban centers. Global climate change is predicted to cause massive population displacement related to the disappearance of coastal lands and to create dire food shortages within the coming decade. Increasingly, societies are forced to make systemic adaptations to handle the strain of these modern-day crises. Governments must be innovative and adaptive in their efforts to protect the public. When the fundamental goals and objectives of society alter, the law should be modified to …

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 …

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.

The Public Trust Doctrine And The Great Lakes Shores, Kenneth K. Kilbert

Cleveland State Law Review

The shores of the Great Lakes may look serene, but they are a battleground. Members of the public enjoy using the shores for fishing, boating, birding, or simply strolling along and taking in the scenic vistas. Repeatedly, however, owners of land ordering the Great Lakes (i.e., littoral owners),' armed with deeds indicating they own the shore to the water's edge or even lower, have tried to stop members of the public from using their property above the water's edge. The right to exclude others from your property, the littoral owners argue, is one of the most important sticks in the …

Stop The Beach Renourishment Stops Private Beachowners' Right To Exclude The Public, Kristen G. Juras, Sydney F. Ansbacher, Robert K. Lincoln

Faculty Law Review Articles

In this article, the authors examine the various measures implemented by state and local governments to enhance public access to and use of government-owned tidelands, streambeds, and lake shores and how, although not necessarily titled as such, many of these measures result, without payment of compensation, in an easement allowing public access to and use of private waterfront property.

Section I describes the rights of riparian property owners and the right of the public to use government-owned shores and tidelands, followed by a general overview of various state legislative and judicial responses designed to address the conflicts that arise when …

Waste No Land: Property, Dignity And Growth In Urbanizing China, Eva M. Pils

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

The Chinese state does not allow rural collectives to sell land, but takes land from them and makes it available on the urban property market. While rural land rights are thus easily obliterated, the newly created urban rights in what used to be rural land enjoy legal protection. The state justifies these land takings by the need for urbanization and economic growth. The takings have resulted in an impressive contribution of the construction and property sector to state revenue and GDP growth, but also in unfairness toward peasants evicted from their land and homes. The example discussed here shows that …

Slides: Market-Based Stream Flow Restoration And Mitigation, Amanda Cronin

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Amanda Cronin, Washington Water Trust, Seattle, WA

23 slides

Property And Relative Status, Nestor M. Davidson

Michigan Law Review

Property does many things-it incentivizes productive activity, facilitates exchange, forms an integral part of individual identity, and shapes communities. But property does something equally fundamental: it communicates. And perhaps the most ubiquitous and important messages that property communicates have to do with relative status, with the material world defining and reinforcing a variety of economic, social, and cultural hierarchies. This status-signalingf unction of property-withp roperty serving as an important locus for symbolic meaning through which people compare themselves to others-complicates premises underlying central discourses in contemporary property theory. In particular, status signaling can skew property's incentive and allocative benefits, leading …

Appropriability And Property, Yonatan Even

American University Law Review

This paper challenges the malleability of the idea of property as a relative, indeterminate "bundle of rights", which appears to dominate property doctrine at least since Ronald Coase's "The Problem of Social Cost". Focusing on the core goals of property regimes, the paper proposes an alternative view of property rights - one that is centered on the ability of owners to appropriate the benefits of their assets in the face of a threat from numerous potential adversaries, rather than their ability to contract such assets away within a bilateral context. This appropriability problem, it is argued, is a defining concept …

A Tale Of Two Lochners: The Untold History Of Substantive Due Process And The Idea Of Fundamental Rights, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

To say that the Supreme Court's decision in Lochner v. New York is infamous is an understatement. Scholars remember Lochner for its strong right to contract and laissez-faire ideals--at least that is the conventional account of the case. Whether one concludes that Lochner leads to the judicial activism of Roe v. Wade, or foreshadows strong property rights, the standard account depends upon an important assumption: that the Lochner era's conception of fundamental rights parallels that of today. From that assumption, it appears to follow that Lochner symbolizes the grave political dangers of substantive due process, with its "repulsive connotation …

A Few Questions About The Social-Obligation Norm, Jedediah S. Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

I applaud Gregory Alexander for proposing an innovative view of property, one focused on the obligations of ownership. His project locates what I think of as the liberal aim of personal freedom (meaning both formal autonomy and real opportunity) within a social context of distributive choices and conceptions of mutual obligation. That is, he is asking what counts as a free society, and he is putting property regimes at the center of the answer. I want to set out some questions about where his project goes from here.

Evolutionary Theory And The Origin Of Property Rights, James E. Krier

Articles

For legal scholars, the evolution of property rights has been a topic in search of a theory. My aim here is to draw together various accounts (some of them largely neglected in the legal literature), from dated to modern, and suggest a way they can be melded into a plausible explanation of property's genesis and early development. What results hardly amounts to a theory, but it does suggest an outline for one. Moreover, it provides a primer on the subject, a reasonably solid foundation for thinking and talking about the evolution of property rights.

Eminent Domain: The Unintended Consequences Of Kelo, Tracy Lynn Bower

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In recent years, local governments in the United States have increasingly used eminent domain to promote economic development, raising concerns among property-right advocates over what those advocates view as unlawful, or what should be unlawful, takings of private property in order to benefit another private property owner. This philosophical and legal dispute reached a crisis point in the 2005 United States Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London. In that decision, the court narrowly upheld a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling granting the City of New London permission to redevelop land that had been seized from existing homeowners …

Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Uncertainty About Property Rights, Stewart E. Sterk

Michigan Law Review

Clarity can be a considerable virtue in property rights. But even when property rights are defined clearly in the abstract, ascertaining the scope of those rights in concrete situations often entails significant cost. In some instances, the cost of acquiring information about the scope of property rights will exceed the social value of that information. In those circumstances, further search for information about the scope of rights is inefficient; the social harm avoided by further search does not justify the costs of the search. Potential resource users, however make decisions based on private costs and benefits, not social costs and …

Introduction: Common Law Environmental Protection, Jonathan H. Adler, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Publications

Today there is widespread dissatisfaction with many aspects of federal environmental law. The apparent success of early environmental regulations notwithstanding, many analysts and academics have begun to reexamine the potential of common law causes of action to supplement, if not supplant, portions of the existing regulatory regime. Some environmental advocates have come to the conclusion that state-based tort law may be more protective than federal regulations. At the same time, private litigators and state attorneys general are reviving common law causes of action in an effort to augment existing regulatory controls.

Is the common law a viable means of addressing …

Property Rights In Spectrum: A Reply To Hazlett, Philip J. Weiser, Dale N. Hatfield

Publications

No abstract provided.

Spectrum Policy Reform And The Next Frontier Of Property Rights, Philip J. Weiser, Dale N. Hatfield

Publications

The scarcity of wireless spectrum reflects a costly failure of regulation. In practice, large swaths of spectrum are vastly underused or used for low value activities, but the regulatory system prevents innovative users from gaining access to such spectrum through marketplace transactions. In calling for the propertyzing of swaths of spectrum as a replacement for the current command-and-control system, many scholars have wrongfully assumed the simplicity of how such a regime would work in practice. In short, many scholars suggest that spectrum property rights can easily borrow key principles from trespass law, reasoning that since property rights work well for …

The Public Trust In Surface Waterways And Submerged Lands Of The Great Lakes States, Bertram C. Frey, Andrew Mutz

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The modern public trust doctrine compels each Great Lakes state to protect the sustainable future of the Lakes and to preserve traditional public uses. At the same time, the doctrine constrains the states' powers to allow exploitation of trust resources. This Article provides a brief historical overview of the public trust doctrine in waterways and their submerged lands. It next explores how the eight Great Lakes states have applied the doctrine, discusses the surprising number of differences in the doctrine's development from state to state, and provides comparison charts. After analyzing the variety of approaches used by the eight states …

A Decade Of Colorado Supreme Court Water Decisions, 1996-2006: Special Report, Colorado Foundation For Water Education

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Justice Greg Hobbs, Colorado Supreme Court

31 pages.

Includes color illustrations and map

"Acknowledgments: This special report highlights important features of Colorado Supreme Court water decisions handed down between 1996 and 2006. It contains excerpts from opinions authored by Justices Lohr, Vollack, Mullarkey, Kourlis, Hobbs, Martinez, Bender, Rice, Coats and Eid. It is adapted from an article that first appeared in The Water Report (www.thewaterreport.com), February 15, 2007, used with permission."

The Growing Influence Of Tort And Property Law On Natural Resources Law: Case Studies Of Coal Bed Methane Development And Geologic Carbon Sequestration, Alexandra B. Klass

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

19 pages.

"Alexandra B. Klass, Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School"

Historical Evolution And Future Of Natural Resources Law And Policy: The Beginning Of An Argument And Some Modest Predictions, Sally K. Fairfax, Helen Ingram, Leigh Raymond

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

8 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"Sally Fairfax, UC-Berkeley, Helen Ingram, UC-Irvine, and Leigh Raymond, Purdue University" -- Agenda

Compensation For Porperty Under The European Convention On Human Rights, Tom Allen

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article asks whether the right to property, as a human right, serves the same general purpose as other human rights. The Article does so by examining the standards relating to compensation for deprivations of property under the European human rights system. If the system protects property for similar reasons as other fundamental rights, the interpretation of the right to property should draw upon the principles developed in relation to the interpretation of other rights. However, if the right to property is distinct from other human rights, then perhaps guidance on its interpretation should come from comparative law, specifically in …

The Morality Of Property, Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

The relationship between property and morality has been obscured by three elements in our intellectual tradition. First is the assumption, which can be traced to Bentham, that property is a pure creature of law. An institution assumed to be wholly dependent on law for its existence is unlikely to be infused with strong moral content. Second is the related tradition, also Benthamite, of examining questions about property law from a utilitarian perspective. Utilitarianism is, of course, a moral theory. But in its modern applications, based on price theory and cost-benefit analysis, it adopts a framework largely indifferent to questions of …

Losing Control: Regulating Situational Crime Prevention In Mass Private Space, Robert E. Pfeffer

ExpressO

In this article the author puts forth an approach to regulating Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) (i.e. steps to preemptively eliminate or reduce crime, such as preemptive exclusion and closed circuit TV monitoring in Mass Private Space (i.e. private property that has characteristics normally associated with public spaces, such as a large shopping mall).

It has become increasingly common for owners of mass private space to employ SCP techniques such as close circuit television monitoring, exclusion of persons based upon behavior or risk factors and limits on attire, such as colors associated with gangs. While there has been a lively scholarly …

Conservation Cartels: How Competition Policy Conflicts With Environmental Protection, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

The alleged purpose of antitrust law is to improve consumer welfare by proscribing actions and arrangements that reduce output and increase prices. Conservation seeks to improve human welfare by maximizing the long-term productive use of natural resources, a goal that often requires limiting consumption to sustainable levels. While conservation measures might increase prices in the short run, they enhance consumer welfare by increasing long-term production and ensuring the availability of valued resources over time. That is true whether the restrictions are imposed by a private conservation cartel or a government agency. Insofar as antitrust law fails to take this into …

Free And Green: A New Approach To Environmental Protection, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Most Americans consider themselves environmentalists, yet most experts are dissatisfied with existing environmental regulations, which are both inefficient and inequitable. Worse, many don't serve environmental goals. This article outlines an alternative approach to environmental policy based on market institutions and property rights rather than central-planning and bureaucratic control. The aim is both to improve environmental protection and lessen the costs ? Economic and otherwise ? Of achieving environmental goals. It seeks to ensure that Americans' environmental values are advanced without sacrificing the individual liberties the American government was created to protect.

The problem with current regulatory approaches is not merely …

Is The Suite Life Truly Sweet? The Property Rights Luxury Box Owners Actually Acquire, Amanda Schlager

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Part I of this Note offers a look at the rising trend of luxury boxes, with a discussion of what separates a license from a lease. Part II will look at the property rights frequently given to one who "leases" a luxury box and will analyze what interest in land he actually receives. Part III presents the implications of misnomers in luxury box leasing and presents possible repercussions for both luxury box owners and those to whom the owners would lease them. It also suggests a better method for creating and governing these arrangements. Finally, it asserts that because of …

Review Of Optional Law: The Structure Of Legal Entitlements, Omri Ben-Shahar

Reviews

The concept of "property rights" plays a prominent role in economic theory. Economists have been studying how property rights emerged as a system of allocation, replacing regimes of open access and lack of legal order. Property rights are regularly viewed by economists as the primary policy tool to control the incentives to invest in new assets (e.g., in information) and to maintain existing assets (e.g., fisheries) when contracts are incomplete. Property rights are the endowments that individuals exchange in a market economy, the equity that investors trade in financial markets. Property rights are a basic building block in economics.