ABSTRACT
Western-style property systems developed in a world where resources were abundant relative to human population and resource use. Those conditions shaped the assumptions, norms, and principles driving the property systems. Today technological advances have greatly increased resource use, leading to unexpected long-term costs. Allowing property systems to operate virtually without restraint has undermined the fabric of socio-ecological systems and led to climate change – a problem of extreme environmental harm that threatens the entire world. A systems view of property is needed to expose the limitations of the outdated assumptions and norms of property and highlight ways to impose greater accountability on property rightsholders for the adverse impacts of their uses on common or shared natural systems.
Butler, Lynda L, Property, Climate Change and Accountability (December 6, 2021) in Handbook of Property, Law, and Society (Routledge Press) (Margaret Davies, Lee Godden, and Nicole Graham eds) (forthcoming 2022).
First posted 2021-12-16 09:00:37
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