Literature Review

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria is rich in natural resources, but it has also been plagued by poverty, conflict, and environmental degradation. This paper explores the role of property rights in this so-called "unspoken curse." The lack of clear and enforceable property rights has led to conflict, a power imbalance, and destructive practices. This has created a cycle of poverty and conflict such as conflict over land ownership, conflict over resource extraction, and conflict between communities that has been difficult to break. The paper concluded that the lack of property rights has contributed to environmental conflict, as well as other forms of conflict, including violence and social unrest. Meanwhile, resolving these conflicts will require addressing the underlying issue of property rights, as well as other issues such as poverty and marginalization. The paper suggested among others that the government should ensure the creation of a system of land registration that recognizes both legal and customary claims, and establish a process for resolving conflicts as well as involving local communities in decision-making around oil production and environmental management in order to improve the region's development and sustainability.

This article analyzes the theoretical issues of property liability for damage caused to natural objects of ownership. Particular attention is paid to the definition of such terms as: “property liability”, “environmental harm”, “economic harm”, “classification of property liability for environmental harm”. The general and specific features of legislative acts of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the field of compensation for damage caused to natural objects of property rights are analyzed. The main shortcomings of the legislation in this area are identified, as well as conclusions and recommendations for improving land legislation in the field of property liability for environmental damage are formulated.

The environmentally harmful yet common practice of storing and destroying IP-infringing goods is untenable. This contribution discusses a number of more sustainable alternative remedies that can be considered with the aim of creating a balance between the interests of rights holders in ending infringements and the societal interest in environmental protection, which lies in preventing the wasting of scarce raw materials and pollution of the air and soil. A sustainable IP enforcement practice is very much dependent on the willingness of rights holders and their attorneys to consider more sustainable alternatives. Courts also have a part to play, by applying what is called a sustainability test when examining the proportionality of the remedies and measures claimed by rights holders.

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is to examine the theories that underpin the ownership and management of oil rights in Nigeria and the need for a new ownership model. The economy of Nigeria is majorly supported by revenues from natural resources, especially crude oil. With the downturn in the country’s economy, the Nigerian Federal Government recently embarked on a series of crude oil discoveries to increase revenue despite the unresolved violations of human rights of the indigenous peoples and environmental abuses committed during oil exploration in the Niger Delta region of the country. The Nigerian government finds justification for this uncontrolled exploration of natural resources in the doctrine of discovery and the rule of capture. The author argues that basing the right of the Nigerian Federal Government to explore natural resources on the two doctrines has negative implications on the rights of indigenous peoples in Nigeria and environmental protection, and is a continuation of the philosophies behind colonialism. Therefore, the article examines the doctrine of discovery, the rule of capture, the colonial philosophies of property rights, and the legal regime regarding ownership of natural resources in Nigeria. It suggests a hybrid ownership model where ownership is shared between indigenous groups and the government.

If unauthorized resource use is prevented, managing marine resources by allocating property rights may match economic and environmental conservation incentives. However, because of the developing exploitation of marine resources and accompanying pollution, species' living conditions in Europe's waters are changing more quickly than before. By considering the roles of fisheries productivity, intellectual property rights, intellectual capital rights, market size, governance, and economic growth from 1990 to 2022, this paper aims to investigate the dynamic effect of property rights factors on the sustainability of the fisheries industry in 27 European countries. At higher quantiles, the findings showed a significant positive association between governance and fisheries sustainability adopting a new method, the MMQR with fixed effects, the Method of Moments Quantile Regression. In addition, in EU27 nations, the impact of intellectual property rights was favorable and statistically significant from the first to ninth quantiles. The findings show that the EU14 developed nations have more excellent governance and intellectual capital rights than the EU13 developing countries, significantly benefiting fisheries sustainability. In the same way that market size and economic growth condense fisheries sustainability in EU14 developed and EU13 developing countries, it has been discovered that intellectual property rights do the same across all quantiles, supporting the growth hypothesis for fisheries-producing countries. The findings specifically show that the beneficial solid impact of intellectual property rights, market size, and economic development on the sustainability of fisheries is more significant in EU13 developing nations than in EU14 developed countries. These results provide policymakers with helpful information for promoting property rights aspects in EU14 and EU13 nations via effective green technologies in the fisheries sector to meet sustainable development objectives.

The talk focused on the relation between transformative climate action and individual property rights, in particular on tensions between the fundamental right to property and spatial planning law. The rule of law and the classical, liberal structure of legal systems guarantee fundamental rights for individuals, among other also the right to property, the freedom to carry on a business or the free movement of capital within the European Union, all of which might impede the efforts of environmental and climate protection policies. The talk discussed to which extent economic fundamental rights render climate actions impossible or harm its effects.

Predominant water scarcity and environmental degradation in Bangladesh's coastal communities arise due to extreme meteorological conditions, unrestrained water usage, and extensive saline intrusion into both surface and groundwater. This study leverages both quantitative data from a household survey and qualitative data from a Participatory Rural Appraisal to explore the perspectives of 150 official experts and 240 coastal public respondents regarding the implementation of a "Community-Based Rainwater Harvesting System" (CBRWHS) as a sustainable water supply technology in six major coastal districts of Bangladesh. Though CBRWHS surpasses the benefits of an individual harvesting system (IHS) due to its collective approach, high storage capacity, social cohesiveness, environmental benefits, and potential for scalability, findings suggest that the experts identify financial insolvency, lack of technical skills, and insufficient education as principal barriers against adopting CBRWHS. They propose that providing technical instructions, education, and establishing a CBRWHS pilot could serve as effective incentives. While expressing a sufficient understanding of IHS, respondents are willing to adopt CBRWHS only if financial support is provided. Given the residents' experience with IHS, they are cognizant of the financial and technical challenges intrinsic to such systems. CBRWHS, unlike IHS, operates as a shared system with collective property rights and regulations. Majority of respondents perceive CBRWHS as a potential significant mitigation tool against the water shortage situation since the challenges associated with harvesting, maintaining, and using rainwater could be addressed collectively by the user community. Similar to the official experts, public respondents identify a lack of technical expertise, financial constraints, and regulations as the most significant obstacles to IHS adoption. The findings of this study hold substantial implications not only for the local region but also for similar coastal regions worldwide, suggesting a crucial need for the prioritization of community-based solutions to water scarcity within the wider global discourse on sustainable water management.

This article examines the legal and policy intersection of property rights and environmental law. Property rights are closely connected to and often in tension with many elements of environmental law and policy. Appropriate controls on the use of property rights and natural resources, and effectively managing the environmental consequences of such use, are critical in addressing the environmental challenges of our time. This paper first reviews the importance of property rights in the context of our legal, social, economic and political systems. It then examines the active use of property rights and mechanisms to address environmental challenges, including the creative and innovative use and development of new forms of property rights that have emerged in recent times. This is followed by a discussion of recent developments in restricting the use of property rights in land use and natural resource development to address environmental issues. The paper concludes with some ideas for future development of the law, and emerging new directions for future research. Throughout the paper, New Zealand will be used as a case study to reflect on the relationship between property rights and environmental protection.

Equity has become a fundamental concern in contemporary discussions on legal and socio-economic aspects of property rights. From the legal perspective, equity is seen as a reflection of distributive justice and it is taken as a matter of political deliberation on socio-economic grounds, while leaving the accomplishment of equity standards totally to legal and economic measures. In this backdrop, the importance of the concept of equity as an ethical and virtuous concern from a moral and ecological perspective has been largely neglected in the contemporary property rights discourse. This lack of attention on the moral aspect of equity in property rights permits limitless exploitation of natural resources. Failure to extend the moral aspect of equity over the entire ecological domain in a holistic approach has created a lot of failures in preserving natural environment and ensuring sustainability. Having noticed the need for scrutinizing the role of property rights in upholding equity in a broader moral and ecological ground, this chapter seeks an alternative approach to fill the gap of philosophical and ethical insights in the current understanding of the concept of equity in property rights. As a reflection of time-tested wisdom accumulated over generations, Indigenous knowledge brings a wide range of solutions to this problem. Thus, the present study aims at investigating the underlying ideological concerns embedded in the Indigenous systems of property rights in Sri Lanka, based on ante-narratives found in archival sources. Accordingly, the fundamental principle behind Indigenous systems of managing property rights which ensured sustainability was seen as the balance of interests, manifested in conciliation between rights and obligations, exploitation and conservation, and self-interests and collective interests. In fact, it shows the possibility of incorporating the moral aspect of equity into property rights through different context-appropriate strategies, upholding equity in a broader sense to promote sustainability.

In the early hours of the morning of October 21, 2019, two right-wing Catholic men broke into the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, Rome. They stole four carved wooden statues of a naked pregnant woman that had been on display and used in a papal ceremony during the Pan-Amazonian Synod that was nearing its conclusion and threw them into the Tiber River. What was the meaning of these statues and the ceremony in the presence of the pope in which they appeared? Was this an example of syncretism, of dual religious belonging, or an exercise in what Pope Francis called “daring prudence” in terms of inculturation of the gospel? This article, the 2022 Louis J. Luzbetak Lecture at Catholic Theological Union, takes the incident of the theft of the statues and the controversy that followed as an opportunity to propose a more creative and bolder approach to the relationship between mission and culture.

Aim: To show the constitutional recognition that nature has gained in the Ecuadorian nation, which has allowed it to be subject of rights and duties as a legal novelty in the construction and evolution of the 21 st century, as well as its regulatory development within positive law and public policies.   Methods: For this, the historical-legal, analysis-synthesis and induction-deduction methods were em- ployed.   Findings: From the last decades of the 20th century, legal pluralism has become relevant due to its impact on the social scene. While having various orientations and positions, Philosophy of Law and Sociology deal with the definition of new theoretical constructs required to address the essence of legal pluralism in the current context, reevaluating it and providing new aspects of analysis.   Conclusions: The Ecuadorian State guarantees the conservation and development of the indigenous peoples’ traditional forms of coexistence and social organization since they constitute an expression of interculturality. This has had a positive effect on the constitutional protection of nature and its regulatory development based on constitutional texts.

Rights of Nature (RoN) have become a worldwide legal phenomenon in which Nature and ecosystems are recognised as legal entities which have rights, duties, and liabilities. This eco-centric legal discourse attempts to shift away from anthropocentric conceptualisations of Nature as ‘property’ or a ‘commodity’ to be exploited for economic gain. RoN have characteristically been ideated outside Western legal cultures, where Nature is largely considered an object, rather than a subject. Subjectivising Nature, in accordance with non-Western knowledges (epistemologies) and worldviews (cosmovisions), seeks to reframe human-Nature relations in harmony with one another. RoN have been emblematised by innovative legal precedents such as the 2008 constitutionalisation of Pachamama in Ecuador, 2010/2012 recognition of rights to Mother Earth in Bolivia, and the legal personality of rivers in countries such as Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ), India, Bangladesh, to name a few paradigmatic examples. Courts have played a paramount role in promoting and bolstering such processes of legal innovation. Hence, RoN provide a fruitful testing ground for investigating the extent to which inter-judicial exchanges between domestic courts in jurisdictions formally submitted to colonial domination are promoting the diffusion of non-Western legal epistemologies (jurisprudences). In the context of my doctoral research, I test this hypothesis in two intertwined ways. Firstly, by understanding to what extent the diffusion of RoN epistemologies is contributing to the development of genuinely cosmopolitan jurisprudences[i] in borrowing jurisdictions. Secondly, by investigating whether the application of RoN in these jurisdictions are overcoming tensions between legal traditions by hampering or accommodating legal ecumenism.