The environment has often been thought to consist of resources that are unowned, and hence subject to the well-known tragedy of the commons. But in recent years, property ideas have been increasingly recruited for environmental protection, in a manner that appears to vindicate the view that property rights evolve along with the needs for resource management. Nevertheless, property regimes have some pitfalls for environmental resources: the relevant parties may not be able to come to agreement; property regimes may be weak or ineffective; they may be aimed at purposes inconsistent with environmental protection; property rights definitions may not work well for environmental resources; modern property regimes may promote monoculture rather than diverse environments. This essay describes these problems and asks to what degree they apply to a new effort to use property rights approaches, namely cap-and-trade programs to control greenhouse gases. It concludes that property rights, while imperfect and something of a retreat from a regime of complete liberty, may offer gains for environmental protection. But success will depend on close attention to the accountability and effectiveness of the governmental institutions necessary to support environmental property regimes.

This essay, written for a symposium commemorating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Charles Reich's famous article, quot;The New Propertyquot;, maintains that the 1964 article, which argued for procedural protection for government benefits like social security and unemployment compensation, was a harbinger of environmental rights that would be created in the following decade. Calling for quot;scrupulous observance of fair proceduresquot;, Professor Reich anticipated the procedural regularity that courts would insist from agencies under the National Environmental Policy Act and pollution control statutes.The essay claims that underlying the process rights accorded both those with quot;new propertyquot; and environmental concerns was a liberty concern, which helps explain the ensuing close judicial scrutiny. The similarities between new property rights and environmental rights is hardly accidental, since allocating rights to use the environmental commons is an archetypical case of dispensing governmental largess. The participatory rights recognized in both contexts assures access to decisionmakers which may produce informed dialogue, more democratic decisionmaking, and changed visions of the public interest.

Manual do mercado livre do ambientalistmo; os recursos naturais; a vida selvagem; o controle da poluição e os riscos.

In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.

The right to own and use private property is among the most essential human rights and the essential basis for economic growth. That’s why America’s Founders guaranteed it in the Constitution. Yet in today’s America, government tramples on this right in countless ways. Regulations forbid people to use their property as they wish, bureaucrats extort enormous fees from developers in exchange for building permits, and police departments snatch personal belongings on the suspicion that they were involved in crimes. In the case of Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court even declared that government may seize homes and businesses and transfer the land to private developers to build stores, restaurants, or hotels. That decision was met with a firestorm of criticism across the nation. In this, the first book on property rights to be published since the Kelo decision, Timothy Sandefur surveys the landscape of private property in America’s third century. Beginning with the role property rights play in human nature, Sandefur describes how America’s Founders wrote a Constitution that would protect this right and details the gradual erosion that began with the Progressive Era’s abandonment of the principles of individual liberty. Sandefur tells the gripping stories of people who have found their property threatened: Frank Bugryn and his Connecticut Christmas-tree farm; Susette Kelo and the little dream house she renovated; Wilhelmina Dery and the house she was born in, 80 years before bureaucrats decided to take it; Dorothy English and the land she wanted to leave to her children; and Kenneth Healing and his 17-year legal battle for permission to build a home. Thanks to the abuse of eminent domain and asset forfeiture laws, federal, state, and local governments have now come to see property rights as mere permissions, which can be revoked at any time in the name of the “greater good.” In this book, Sandefur explains what citizens can do to restore the Constitution’s protections for this “cornerstone of liberty.”

Environmentalism will vastly diminish our comfort, health, wealth, safety, and security from foreign enemies, and it will ultimately deliver us to tyranny. It is not a benign set of ideas promulgated by well-meaning idealists whose efforts are occasionally hijacked by extremists. It is a radical ideology that is moving inexorably toward its logical, entirely predictable conclusion.

The original edition of this seminal book, published in 1991, introduced the concept of using markets and property rights to protect and improve environmental quality. Since publication, the ideas in this book have been adopted not only by conservative circles but by a wide range of environmental groups. To mention a few examples, Defenders of Wildlife applies the tenets of free market environmentalism to its wolf compensation program; World Wildlife Federation has successfully launched the CAMPFIRE program in southern Africa to reward native villagers who conserve elephants; and the Oregon Water Trust uses water markets to purchase or lease water for salmon and steelhead habitats. This revised edition updates the successful applications of free market environmentalism and adds two new chapters.

First Published in 2000. The materials in this collection are drawn from many disciplines, including economics, law, philosophy and political science. Yet they are all directed to a topic that is worthy of examination from multiple perspectives: Liberty, Property and the Law. Stated in this general form, this topic is broad as law itself. The relationship of liberty and property to the law surfaces whenever and wherever people interact with each other under the command and control of the sovereign. This is Volume II of five and concerns the extent to which the state should enforce or override private contracts made by individuals to dispose of their labor or capital. These issues did not disappear by the onset of the twentieth century, where Volume II picks up. Generally speaking, however, the tools of analysis shifted as the advances in economic theory helped to flesh out the justifications offered for individual liberty and private property on the one hand, and their social control on the other. Although the nature of the discourse changed to some degree, the division of opinion on the proper role of liberty and property remained as sharply contested as it was in earlier times.

In this timely book, Walter E. Block uses classical liberal theory to defend private property rights. Looking at how free enterprise, capitalism and libertarianism are cornerstones of economically prosperous civilizations, Block highlights why private property rights are crucial. Discussing philosophy, libertarian property rights theory, reparations and other property rights issues, this volume is of interest to academics, students, journalists and all those interested in this integral aspect of political economic philosophy.

Climate Liberalism examines the potential and limitations of classical-liberal approaches to pollution control and climate change. Some successful environmental strategies, such as the use of catch-shares for fisheries, instream water rights, and tradable emission permits, draw heavily upon the classical liberal intellectual tradition and its emphasis on property rights and competitive markets. This intellectual tradition has been less helpful, to date, in the development or design of climate change policies. Climate Liberalism aims to help fill the gap in the academic literature examining the extent to which classical-liberal principles, including an emphasis on property rights, decentralized authority and dynamic markets, can inform the debate over climate-change policies. The contributors in this book approach the topic from a range of perspectives and represent multiple academic disciplines. Chapters consider the role of property rights and common-law legal systems in controlling pollution, the extent to which competitive markets backed by legal rules encourage risk minimization and adaptation, and how to identify the sorts of policy interventions that may help address climate change in ways that are consistent with liberal values.