Surprisingly social: Private property and environmental management

Abstract

While scholars express a range of concerns about the use of private property to manage natural resources, an enduring counter-tradition within our idea of private property provides a principled basis for ameliorating or avoiding these concerns. This countertradition, the social obligation norm of property, recognises the intrinsically social function of private property and that private property can impose obligations in addition to conferring entitlements. The New Zealand quota management system for fish and New Zealand Emission Trading Scheme provide illustrations of the presence of this counter-tradition within our law. The counter-tradition also provides a way in which the concerns regarding private property in this space can be addressed, while maintaining the behaviour changing benefits private property offers.