Understanding Of Property Rights Research Articles

Settlement growth and military conflict in early colonial New England 1620–1700

AbstractProperty rights are secure, and violence over land can be attenuated when the treatment and delineation of the property are consistent, stable, and interpreted similarly by each party. In the absence of a mutual understanding of property rights, land-use stability becomes strained as the area of contested land between two rival parties expands—when one party (or group) is perceived as asymmetrically and rapidly accumulating land at another’s expense. While relations between Algonquian tribes and English settlers were generally peaceful in the first half of the 17th century, subsequent colonial growth accelerated and lead to violent conflict. The latter half of the 17th century experienced some of the most devastating conflicts during early colonial American development—beginning with Pequot’s War, peaking during King Philip’s War, and ending with a European proxy war in North America during King William’s War. Using probate data for 72 settlements in New England to measure the growth of farmers as a proxy for colonial territorial growth, I find a general pattern that English settlements with higher rates of population and territorial growth experienced more violent conflict during King Philip’s War. The same relationship between territorial growth and violent conflict was not as strong for wars that preceded and succeeded King Philip’s War.

Генезис концепции злоупотребления правом: вещно-правовой аспект (на примере частного права в Европе)

The concept of abuse of right is being adapted in many areas of private law, including property law. As the absoluteness of property rights was leveled and restrictions on property rights were established, the category of abuse of law was actualized, since it regulated relations arising on the periphery of the named sub-branch of private law. In order to acquire the features inherent in the modern understanding of property rights, as well as the concept of abuse of rights in the property aspect, this concept overcame the search period, the period of searching for a balance of interests, when developed legal systems distributed the costs of the owner and third parties. The search for such a balance is reflected in this article on the examples of both continental and Anglo-American law.

Revitalizing community forestry in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia: A property right perspective

Severe deforestation, land degradation, and the lack of forest products in Ethiopia have necessitated the implementation of a community forestry program since the 1980s by mobilizing the local communities. However, there have been incidents indicating that many of the community forests are either degrading or remaining unproductive. While community forests are, in principle, the collective property of the local community, empirical evidence concerning how property rights impact their management and their role in enhancing rural livelihoods and environmental rehabilitation is lacking. This study aims to investigate the performance of community forestry through the lens of property rights and tenure security, in order to uncover the challenges impeding community forestry in Ethiopia, with a focus on community forests in the Amhara Region. The study gathered primary data on community forest management from two community forests located in East Gojam and North Wollo, using questionnaires, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and field observations. Additionally, secondary data on legal frameworks were collected from institutions involved in community forestry. The data analysis employed descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed that a majority of respondents (91%) lacked clarity regarding the objectives of establishing community forests, and about 95% claimed that community forests belong to the state. These incidents have led to diminished interest in continuing the program. The study highlighted that the community forestry program suffers from inadequate policy and legal provisions, chronic institutional instability, overlapping mandates, and limited community engagement. These factors have weakened property rights, which are reflected in tenure insecurity and the absence of individual household benefit packages. Consequently, it can be concluded that community forest interventions have been promoted based on general belief in the importance of trees for rural livelihoods and ecosystem rehabilitation, rather than as part of a deliberate and directed policy and strategy. In summary, revitalizing community forestry in Ethiopia necessitates a thorough understanding of property rights and tenure security issues. In this regard, it is imperative for government agencies to enact a clear national strategy for community forestry development and adopt a supportive role to enable communities to establish robust community forestry institutions to safeguard their rights while fostering community forestry and environmental protection activities.

CIVIL LAW AND CIVIL PROPERTY IN THE LIBERTARIAN THEORY OF LAW BY V.S. NERSESYANTS

The article is devoted to the study of the methodology of the doctrine of civilization of the Russian jurist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences V.S. Nersesyants - the author of the libertarian legal theory of law. Civilization is a post-socialist system - a transitional period from socialist property to civil and all other types of property. Its main concepts are civil law and civil property. Their origin and semantic meaning are investigated with the help of a comparative historical analysis of the concept of property rights in the most authoritative theories of the XIX-XX centuries. The legal understanding of Russian thinkers is considered in the context of a pan-European one. It is noted that the basic concepts of civilization represent a new stage of scientific and philosophical understanding of property rights. The author of this article comes to the conclusions: 1) libertarian-legal theory is the result of a dialectical synthesis of classical and non-classical types of legal understanding; 2) in the methodology of V.S. Nersesyants, there is a clear distinction between legal and socio-political meanings in the understanding of property rights. Such differentiation of meanings was absent in previous theories of the twentieth century. Individualized civil law has a legal nature. It stems from the principle of formal equality. V.S. Nersesyants theoretically develops this principle and interprets civil law as equality of opportunities for all citizens in gaining actual freedom. The analysis of the concept of “civil property” is made, which allows it to be attributed to socio-political categories: the origins of civil property are in the nationalization of socio-economic resources, it is octroized by the state, and recognized by it as inalienable. V. S. Nersesyants considers it as an alternative to the bourgeois one in the “transition period”, especially for those who are not ready for some reasons, including ideological ones, to accept for themselves the strict rules of the capitalist market game.

Effect of Land Property Rights on Forest Resources in Southern China

The land tenure reform is important for forest resource management worldwide. Since China initiated a new round of collective forestland tenure reform (CFTR) in 2003, improving forest output by clarifying property rights plays a crucial role in realizing sustainable forest resource management. Using survey data of 312 bamboo plantation households from Southern China, this paper empirically examines the impact path of land property rights on forest resources. The estimation results show that both the forestland use right and disposal right are able to significantly improve the forest output by encouraging households to invest and optimizing the allocation of forestry labor. Particularly, the results reveal that the use right has a positive impact on forest output through forestland investment. With regard to the disposal right, we find that it has a positive effect on forest output through forestland investment, but it has a negative impact on forest output through the forestry labor allocation. The findings of this study suggest that to promote the growth of forest resources, the government should endow households with a more complete set of rights, and further strengthen their understanding of property rights. In addition, our findings enhance the understanding of the collective forestland tenure reform in China; they also have implications for the decentralized management of forestry elsewhere in the world.

Boris N. Chicherin’s Doctrine of Property: Basic Ideas and Unique Features

ABSTRACT This article examines Boris N. Chicherin’s ideas about property. It shows that the thinker interprets property as a material form of the objectification of human freedom, the most important and necessary condition for a fulfilling life. The author argues that Chicherin’s analysis of property is aimed at identifying and justifying its anthropological, legal, and social significance. In that regard, the author reviews and analyzes Chicherin’s ideas about the role of property in the life of a person, of individual social estates, and of society, his understanding of property rights and position on issues related to limiting it, and his interpretation of material–economic equality.

ЕВОЛЮЦІЯ ТА ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЯ ПРАВ ВЛАСНОСТІ В КОНТЕКСТІ ДОСЛІДЖЕНЬ ІСТОРІЇ ЕКОНОМІЧНОЇ ДУМКИ

In the study of market relations, the concept of "property rights" should be considered as an important precondition for economic development. The most controversial issue in the institutional research development is to determine the patterns of interaction between the economic and legal systems, particularly, in the context of the formation and development of the property rights as a set of economic, social, legal relations between members of society that give people usefulness or pleasure. The theoretical framework for the formation of the institutional concept of the property rights is based on the socio-legal direction of American institutionalism and the Anglo-Saxon legal system. For the first time, American institutionalism paid attention to the economic aspects of the ownership transference of goods and services (market transactions) and the Anglo-Saxon law has studied the impact of the various forms of ownership on economic relations, in particular, in the structure of formation of transaction costs associated with market operations. The theory of transaction costs has become the basis for the development of three areas of "neo-institutional" research on property rights: the first is the economics of law (theory of property rights), the second is the institutional theory of the state and the third is new economic history. The understanding of property rights is based on the following that property rights can be established to any rare tangible and intangible objects, even personal human rights. Moreover, the basis of the economic activity is the exchange of the property rights, market operations transactions. And the use of market mechanism for the exchanging of goods is followed by transaction costs. The market transactions costs determine the composition, structure and dynamics of changes in social institutions of society. And property rights have a significant impact on the behavior of property relations participants and encourage people to adhere to certain forms of behavior and cause them to avert other forms of activity. Compliance and violation of the rules established by the property rights is an act of a rational economic choice.

The Tenure Guidelines in Policy and Practice: Democratizing Land Control in Guatemala

This paper explores the challenges for democratizing land and natural resource control in Guatemala through use of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests (Tenure Guidelines). This international human rights instrument comes at a critical moment, in which the current global land rush has shaped contemporary agrarian transformation with serious implications for the right to food and control of natural resources. The Tenure Guidelines provide us with a unique opportunity to put land and natural resource tenure squarely under the prescriptions of international human rights law, rather than allowing tenure to be subsumed by a narrow understanding of property rights based on civil and merchant law. In Guatemala, we are witnessing a political opening, where the government has incorporated the language of the Tenure Guidelines into its regulatory framework unlike any other country in Latin America. At the same time, the world watches on while a slow-motion coup engulfs the Central American country, reflecting a global trend of gutting democracies and coopting the language and legislation meant to protect them. Thus, the implementation of the Tenure Guidelines is strongly contested by state and corporate actors seeking to use the instrument in order to gain political legitimacy for the expansion of agribusiness like oil palm and sugarcane, and other forms of extractive industry. This paper’s findings indicate that when applied together with a rights-based approach, the Tenure Guidelines are a powerful social and political tool. Such is especially true of the most marginalized populations who require protection and respect for their existing tenure rights, promotion of reforms for better access to and control over land and resources, and restoration of tenure rights resulting from displacement or dispossession.

Complex private-common property rights in institutional and planning theories

This research focuses on a substantial gap between theories of institutions and property rights: institutions are accepted as complex social structures, but property rights are generally considered as simple, that is, either private or public. Although usually unacknowledged, this simplified understanding of property rights is actually based on Samuelson’s theory developed six decades ago. According to Samuelson, the inherent characteristics of goods determine whether they are privately or collectively consumed commodities. Although Samuelson does not propose a mandatory unambiguous link between types of consumption and types of ownership, his theory implies that in principle, private goods are consumed and owned privately and public goods are consumed and owned publicly. Thus, in Samuelson’s theory, institutions are redundant. This article maintains that people need institutions and organisations because resources are scarce, and most resources are too expensive for individual use/consumption. To access such resources, people form groups and create organisations and institutions, thereby reducing the individual costs of use and consumption. As complex systems, institutions generate complex property rights – common/collective to the members of an organisation, but private to that organisation (the union of members). Furthermore, institutions determine the patterns of interaction between planning and the market (as the two main mechanisms of exercising property rights) at all levels of the multilevel structure of organisations and society. The article argues that Buchanan’s theory of clubs offers a more accurate explanation of the nature of property rights as relevant to institutions.

Property rights revisited – are narratives the way forward?

PurposeThis paper aims to show how property rights predominantly shape discussions about the governance of natural resources and thereby neglect questions of (collective) identities and alternative solutions to govern natural resources. The purpose is to introduce narratives as an alternative approach to the discussion about the governance of natural resources.Design/methodology/approachGuided by the question of how we acquire property and what that tells us about our understanding of to whom natural resources belong to, the paper reviews the history of property rights by looking into property theories starting from Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. It then takes a closer look at The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study and the Nagoya Protocol with regard to property rights. Second, the paper introduces the concept of narratives surrounding property rights in the past and present.FindingsProperty rights are a social concept dominant in the industrialised world. This has strong implications when looking at the way indigenous people look at natural resources. Mostly, property rights are unknown to them or alternative concepts exist. Yet, documents such as the Nagoya Protocol or the TEEB study presuppose an understanding of property rights originating in European property concepts. A narrative approach to property rights introduces new ideas and looks beyond legislation and policies at the stories people tell about property and natural resources, at property stereotypes and identities and what this might entail for future natural resource governance.Originality/valueThe paper fulfils a need to find alternative approaches to govern natural resources against the background of global environmental challenges.

Demand for Law and the Security of Property Rights: The Case of Post-Soviet Russia

Studies of property rights overwhelmingly focus on whether states expropriate or protect property, overlooking the crucial issue of whether private sector actors willusestate institutions. By contrast, I argue that the “supply” of formal legal institutions often fails to ensure firms will rely on the state for property rights protection. Instead, firms frequently avoid formal legal institutions and turn to illegal strategies based on violence or corruption. Whether firms adopt legal strategies depends on: (1) firm-level practices and beliefs that impede the use of law, (2) the effectiveness of illegal strategies, and (3) coordination problems resulting from firms’ expectations about each other’s strategies. Drawing on interviews with firms, lawyers, and private security agencies, as well as an original survey of Russian enterprises, I illustrate how “demand-side” factors led to a surprising increase in Russian firms’ reliance on formal legal institutions over the past two decades. The findings suggest that comprehensive understanding of property rights and the rule of law requires not only attention to state institutions’ effectiveness, but also to private actors’ strategies.

An analysis of property rights in the Fijian qoliqoli

Fisheries management in Fiji's inshore fishery exists in a plural legal and governance system comprised on the one part by customary fishing rights, and on the other by centralized ownership. The ambiguity in this arrangement stems from a lack of understanding of the property rights of customary fishing rights. This paper aims to clarify what property rights in Fiji's inshore fisheries consists of by applying the bundle of rights property theory analysis using Schlager and Ostrom's five property rights, i.e., access, withdrawal, management, exclusion, and alienation. A clearer understanding of property rights in a fisheries resource is crucial for sustainable fisheries management.

Extracting property values and oil: Los Angeles’ petroleum booms and the definition of urban space in the twentieth century

Abstract Oil extraction began in the City of Los Angeles in the 1890s and continues to this day. A series of oil booms contributed to the city’s explosive growth in the early twentieth century. Because oil drilling was so dangerous, however, Los Angeles residents and city officials tried repeatedly to regulate oil exploration near homes and businesses. This article explains how oil drilling influenced Los Angeles residents’ understanding of property rights, how damage to residential property in the 1930s finally enabled city officials to pass and enforce limits on oil drilling, and then, how mobilization for World War II undermined those limits.

The Securities Transfer Act— The Radical Reconceptualization of Property Rights in Investment Securities

The Securities Transfer Act (STA), which came into force in Alberta and Ontario on I January 2007, is based on the U.S. Uniform Commercial Code Revised Article 8 and reflects a radical reconceptualization of property law investment securities. This article analyzes the conceptual and policy choices behind the STA, focusing on the legislation's functional approach with respect to defining assets held by investors who hold securities through intermediaries, the property rights of such holders, cross-border settlement conflict of law rules, security interests investment property, and conveyancing rules. This article also responds to conceptual and policy-based criticisms directed at the legislative model employed by the STA. The author argues that the STA's functional approach nevertheless significantly contributes to a more accurate understanding of property rights in relation to intangible assets. Also, claims that property rights of prior holders are protected inadequately are analyzed and discussed.

Revising Payment for Ecosystem Services in the Light of Stewardship: The Need for a Legal Framework

Since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) highlighted the importance of ecosystem services for human well-being, the payments for such services have increasingly been drawing the attention of governments, the private sector and academia. Nonetheless, there is not yet a specific legal framework which is able to capture the complexity of managing natural resources and, at the same time, deal with the numerous drawbacks that have been identified by critics, who are opposed to using financialisation of the environment as a tool. This paper, after briefly summarizing some of the main features and criticisms of the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), will critically assess the understanding of property rights over natural resources as stewardship, rather than as entitlement, because this interpretation is more coherent with the inherent characteristics of natural resources and, consequently, of ecosystem services. The novel usage of a stewardship dimension to property rights underlines the necessity for a legal framework for PES, constituted by “property-liability rules”.

Legal title, tenure security, and investment—An empirical study in Beijing

Small property rights (SPR) housing is an informal way to provide housing for residents in Chinese cities. In this paper, we examine the institutional framework and development of SPR properties in China. Using survey data collected in Beijing, we investigate perceived tenure security and the relationship between legal title and investment in home improvements. We consider both the importance and the limitations of the legal dimension, as well as de facto situations of urban land uses, in order to gain a better understanding of property rights and urban development issues. Our results reveal that the characteristics of buildings and residents in SPR communities are not much different from those of commercial housing properties. The residents have a fairly high degree of tenure security even when their properties are not formally recognized by the state. Nevertheless, our results indicate that the absence of a legal title is effective to discourage the owners of SPR housing properties to invest in their properties.

Renegotiating property rights in the Florida golden crab fishery

The golden crab ( Chaceon fenneri ) supports a small, economically healthy fishery in south Florida. Crabbers in the fishery have successfully protected themselves against larger outside fishing interests in the past, and management has been stable for over fifteen years. Why, then, did a portion of the fleet propose shifting to individual transferable quotas (ITQs)? Our findings suggest that proponents sought ITQ management because they believed it would further limit the ability of other crabbers to enter the fishery and act as a mechanism to legally preserve the informal and formal property rights that they have previously negotiated among themselves. Opponents believed that a shift to an ITQ regime would destroy those same property rights. We explore the implications of these findings to a broader understanding of property rights and natural resource management institutions, noting that the currently existing system closely resembles a territorial use rights fishery (TURF).

Renegotiating property rights in the Florida golden crab fishery

<p class="Normal1">The golden crab (<em>Chaceon fenneri</em>) supports a small, economically healthy fishery in south Florida. Crabbers in the fishery have successfully protected themselves against larger outside fishing interests in the past, and management has been stable for over fifteen years. Why, then, did a portion of the fleet propose shifting to individual transferable quotas (ITQs)? Our findings suggest that proponents sought ITQ management because they believed it would further limit the ability of other crabbers to enter the fishery and act as a mechanism to legally preserve the informal and formal property rights that they have previously negotiated among themselves. Opponents believed that a shift to an ITQ regime would destroy those same property rights. We explore the implications of these findings to a broader understanding of property rights and natural resource management institutions, noting that the currently existing system closely resembles a territorial use rights fishery (TURF).

Does Growing Globalisation and Liberalisation of National Markets Indicate that Local Firms and Organisations will have a Greater Presence in International Markets and Louder Voices on International Bodies?

This essay will consider the impact of liberalisation and globalisation on the firm through the lens of property rights and transaction costs. It will first establish the framework for the relationship between the planes on which a firm might be able to own and transact; the domestic, the international and the cosmopolitan. Using a bottom-up approach to emphasize the extension or the encroachment of the previous plane on the other, the essay will begin its analysis on the domestic plane and it will establish the firm as a creature of the domestic and elaborate on some of the primary motivations behind countries adopting more liberalised economic policy and the tension behind these motivations caused by the imposition of such policies on the firm. Moving to the international, it will elaborate on the interaction of domestic and international facilitated by economic policy frameworks and trade agreements and finally, on to the cosmopolitan, an envisioned space with no defined territorial boundaries, typified by conundrum the global commons pose to the understanding of property rights and transaction costs. The transition from one plane to another will emphasize the ballooning impact of transaction costs, profits, which determine the fate of firms and its relationship to property rights in determining the level and type of governance that is interfering within this expectation of profit and will confirm the need for caution in responding to the question.

ANTARA BEZITSRECHT DAN EIGENDOMRECHT: Kajian Tentang Hak Atas Tanah Oleh Penduduk

Nowadays, land ownership's issues become complicated and often result in conflict to nation, either individually or groups (mass). Lack of clarity of the status of the land requires a historical approach to the study of the legal regulation of land that changed following regime, which resulted in changes to the rights and status of land ownership. Results of this study concluded that the problems came out from an incomprehensive notice from the regulator/government, in order to clarify which regime used by now. Most of the people are sticking with the understanding of property rights (bezitzrecht) or tenure (beschikkingsrecht) of land, which is different from the concept of land title rights (eigendom). Therefore, the Government is expected to socialize the concept of land title rights (eigendom) and other present land rights so the conflicts will decrease or subside. Keyword: property rights (bezitzrecht), land title rights (eigendom), regulation history