Assessing public commitment to endangered species protection: A Canadian case study

We address a debate over the effects of private versus customary property rights on external investment. Despite political economists’ claims that external investors favor private property rights, other experts argue that customary systems enable large-scale “land grabs.” We organize these competing claims, highlighting trade-offs due to differences in legibility versus the ability to displace existing landholders under both systems. We study a natural experiment in Liberia, where law codifies parallel private and customary property rights systems. We use this institutional boundary and difference-in-differences methods to isolate differential changes in external investment under the different property rights systems following the global food crisis of 2007–08. We find a larger increase in land clearing where private property rights prevailed, with such clearing related to more concession activity. Qualitative study of a palm oil concession reveals challenges external investors confront when navigating customary systems.

Takings are usually understood as government-imposed restraints on preexisting private property rights. But this is myopic. A cursory examination of actual takings cases reveals that disputes often arise where existing public and private property rights collide: where private lands meets public waters or where public wildlife have habitat on private lands. In these cases, the government is not just imposing on private property rights; it is also seeking to vindicate existing public property rights, for which no compensation should be required. This presents a boundary issue: where do private property rights end and public property rights begin? This chapter assesses the boundary problem in regulatory takings law by examining several important public-private boundary disputes, including Causby, Nollan, Pallazolo, Just, Christy, and Tulare Lake. The purpose is not to offer a comprehensive theory of when private property rights should trump public property rights, or vice versa. The boundary problem is simply too complex to permit a simple, theory-based solution. But neither can the problem be willed away - as the Supreme Court seems intent on doing - by ignoring the public property rights at stake in many regulatory takings disputes.

Market value is the most common compensation basis for expropriation of both private and customary property rights. Private property rights are generally exchangeable while customary property rights are conceptually not as exchangeable. It is hence critical to analyse the applicability of current compensation theories, which are founded on private property rights, to different property rights and in different social settings. By using existing literature and empirical evidence from Africa and other countries where customary property rights dominate, this paper undertakes a theoretical analysis of the applicability of existing compensation theories and the methodologies used to achieve the desired compensation goals. The analysis concludes that whilst current compensation theories are broadly applicable to customary property rights as they aim to protect property rights and prevent expropriatees from impoverishment, various ontological and methodological factors limit the realisation of these goals in settings dominated by customary properties. Such factors include ontology and dominance of customary property rights, use of market value as a compensation basis, and capacity of compensation assessors. Broadly, these factors lead to inadequate compensation and impoverishment of affected people.

This chapter examines the effect of occupation on private property and contract rights within the context of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In doing so, I examine how the treatment of private property in the Iraqi occupation compares and contrasts with Japanese, Italian, and German occupations after World War II. Furthermore, I show how non-European occupations have been characterized by a disregard of occupation rules safeguarding private property as opposed to European occupations. This disregard of the private property under occupation is similar to the disregard with reference to territorial acquisitions of a much earlier period, which I addressed in Chapter 2. In this chapter, I also demonstrate the importance placed on the private property of Europeans in non-European contexts and the lack of focus on the private property rights of non-Europeans. It is therefore not surprising that, following the U.S.-led conquest of Iraq in early 2003, most scholarly and press coverage focused on the status of foreign corporations’ property in Iraq before the war.

I. INTRODUCTION When California enacted California Coastal Act of 1976 (Act), (2) and created California Coastal Commission (Commission) to implement policies of that Act, it attempted to ensure balanced approach toward future development along coast. In particular, Act empowered Commission to weigh environmentally-minded conservation goals against economic needs and private property rights in determining how development should proceed. (3) Portions of Act specifically preclude Commission from applying Act in manner that offends constitutional protections for private property. (4) After twenty-five years, it is fair to say that Commission is more attentive today to claims of property rights, at least in some circumstances, than it was in years immediately following its creation. Nevertheless, for many observers, Commission's incremental progress hardly achieves balance between private and public rights contemplated by Coastal Act and United States Constitution. Indeed, in last few years, Commission has been described in following terms: categorically refuses to recognize validity of an individual homeowner's property rights; (5) a perfect example of well-meaning liberalism gone terribly awry; (6) a rogue organization less interested in matters of general interest than in micromanaging such details as color of people's homes, what they can plant in their gardens and whether they should be allowed to fence wild animals away from yards where their children play; (7) the poster child for government power run amok--but because everything commission does is supposedly to protect environment, hardly anybody questions it; (8) established ... to help local governments adopt local coastal plans. Instead, it pulled Saddam, investing itself with dictatorial powers over every last grain of state's 1.5 million acres of coastal property--public and private; (9) If one's goal is to slow development at all costs--even if it means undermining private property rights ... then one would be aghast at monumental court decision this week that says California Coastal Commission is unconstitutional. Everyone else should be elated. (10) A review of extensive body of case law involving Commission and publicly reported accounts of Commission's actions tends to support foregoing complaints, at least to extent they suggest that Commission has insufficient respect for private rights in land. As described in this article, such review indicates that, much of time, Commission operates by neglect at best, and contempt at worst, when it comes to private property rights. Lack of appreciation for individual property rights can be found in all of Commission's activities; one can see it in denial of carefully-planned development projects along coast, imposition of severe conditions on approved projects, strict enforcement of strict reading Coastal Act, and in Commission's interpretation of scope of its own jurisdiction and procedural protections afforded coastal development applicants. (11) This article documents Commission's response to claims of private land rights, whether that response is manifested in substantive or procedural applications of Commission's power, and surveys judicial conflicts which result. Upon coming to conclusion that individual property interests rank low on Commission's priority list, article attempts to explain reasons for de facto policy treating private land use as privilege subject to Commission's control, rather than as constitutionally protected right. Part II of this article reviews purposes of Coastal Act and role of Commission in implementing Act, with special emphasis on Commission's power over activities on private land. Part III surveys selected case law and press accounts documenting Commission's actions, and summarizes instances in which Commission appears to have given insufficient respect to private rights. …

Environmental Markets: A Property Rights Approach, by Terry L.Anderson and Gary D.Libecap. Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2014, pp. 240, ISBN: 978 0 5212 7965 9, AUD$ 37.59 (paperback) AUD$ 94.03 (hardcover).

The Fearon Corollary: Private Property Rights as War

The Real Right Law of the People’s Republic of China is the basic law for regulating and protecting the property rights. The Constitution, as the fundamental law, adjusts the property right relationship too. The protection from Constitution is the precondition and base for protecting property right. The Real Right Law is to fulfill the principle of Constitution that ensures citizen’s private property right. To protect the property right, Constitution mainly aims at defending the country against outside. Its basic function is to define the country activity. As for the Real Right Law, it is to protect the property right by defining the property in case of invasion of other civil subjects. Both Constitution and Real Right Law offer protection for private property right and also impose restrictions on private property right. That is the national requisition system. This system imposes strict restrictions to private property right. Therefore, it is necessary to set up firm restrictions and constraints on the requisition system. According to the legislation of other countries, we can restrict and constrain this system from three aspects, namely the intention of requisition, the complement standards, and the process, driving the government to realize lawful administration, and protecting the private property right properly.

We use household survey data to investigate the effects of formal, private property rights to agricultural land on agricultural investment, land valuation and access to credit in Tanzania. Results show that while there are no detectable effects of formal, private land property rights (written documentation of ownership) on agricultural investment, land ownership documents nevertheless increase the market value of land substantially (more than 25 percent). One reason appears to be that well-documented private property rights facilitate the use of land as collateral for loans and therefore eases access to credit. The findings suggest that there are potentially significant, economic returns to systematic land titling in Tanzania and other countries, although more research is needed to firmly establish this conclusion.

Private property rights security is currently seen as central to explaining cross-country differences in economic development. Variation in private property rights security itself is perceived to be best explained by differences in the degree to which the political system is able to constrain the despotic power of state executives. I reassess the existing evidence for these two hypotheses and find that: (1) higher levels and significant changes in private property rights security and constraints on the executive are not correlated with higher levels of income and (changes in) growth rates; (2) the commonly used instrument for constraints on the executive and private property rights security - the natural log of European settler mortality - is invalid because it is associated with current levels of income besides its effect through private property rights security and constraints on the executive; and (3) the regularly cited Korean case is in fact evidence against these hypotheses. I provide explanations for these findings and call for a rethinking of which type of institutions and policies are decisive for growth.

Private ownership of property is a fundamental right in our democracy. Historically, land ownership and the virtually unrestricted right to use one's property, played a key role in the development and growth of this country. But private property rights are being challenged, redefined, and reallocated, resulting in new restrictions and changes in agricultural landowners' rights to use their land. Increased awareness and concern about health and environment are causing a change in public attitudes toward agriculture. In the name of environmental protection, new restrictions are being placed on private property rights, causing uncertainties and altering the economic options available regarding the use of land for agricultural production. This paper deals with questions regarding; what are private property rights, what entitlement does land ownership include, and how are property rights being changed? While recognizing there are additional issues impacting property rights such as nuisance conflicts between rural non-farm residents and their farm neighbors, and zoning ordinances, this discussion will be limited to the changing property rights due to environmental protection. These are questions currently being debated by people who believe they hold certain property rights, and by others who either want control or reallocation of those rights, or who also believe they are entitled to those same rights. As the allocation of private property rights changes, the determination of who holds what rights directly affects landowners engaged in agricultural production. Changes required in agricultural management are the result of new information regarding the impact of some agricultural practices, such as; atrazine is no longer viewed simply as a weed control product for corn production, but is now viewed as a substance that causes degradation of the groundwater; and wet spots in fields should no longer be tiled to improve the productivity of the land, but should be left as possible habitat for wildlife. While changes in management practices may be necessary and appropriate, uncertainty for agricultural producers is created regarding which current practices may be restricted in the future and how much control will those outside of agriculture have on the management and operation of agricultural operations. This paper is an analysis of the issues underlying the conflicts resulting from changing agricultural private property rights due to regulations seeking to increase environmental protection.

This article presents a theoretical framework and empirical evidence on the relationship between regulatory uncertainty induced by the possible invasion of an endangered species—the red‐cockaded woodpecker (RCW)—and timber harvesting. The results indicate that landowners whose forests are close to a known or perceived RCW habitat have a high propensity to cut timber and use a clear‐cut method. These preemptive actions are apparently aimed at destroying potential RCW habitat so that the existing values of their property could be protected from the Endangered Species Act (ESA)–related land use limitations.

Political theories of property rights are less optimistic than self-governance perspectives regarding the ability of non-state organizations to supply private property institutions. Despite offering different answers to the question of where property rights come from, these diverse perspectives share a concern with organizational capacity, constraints, and legitimacy as explanations why organizations are able to supply private property rights. We use these shared concerns as a point of departure to investigate formal and informal private property rights in rural Afghanistan. We find that informal private property rights are more effective than formal private property rights because customary organizations fare better than the state on the dimensions of capacity, constraints, and legitimacy. More generally, these ‘political’ features of formal and informal organizations explain why self-governance works, as well as provide insight into the challenges confronting efforts in fragile states to establish formal private property institutions.

A property right is a socially enforced right to select uses of an economic good. A Private property right is one assigned to a specific person and is alienable in exchange for similar rights over other goods. Its strength is measured by its probability and costs of enforcement which depend on the government, informal social actions, and prevailing ethical and moral norms. In simpler terms, no one may legally use or affect the physical circumstances of goods to which you have Private property rights without your approval or compensation. Under hypothetically perfect Private property rights none of my actions with my resources may affect the physical attributes of any other person’s private property. For example, your Private property rights to your computer restrict my and everyone else’s permissible behaviour with respect to your computer, and my Private property rights restrict you and everyone else with respect to whatever I own. It is important to note that it is the physical use and condition of a good that are protected from the action of others, not its exchange value.

Zoning and private property rights in land: Static and dynamic boundary delineation