This article explains the concepts applying to property transfer on death under the New Zealand Property (Relationships) Act 1976. The authors discuss the relevant provisions of the Act, along with the tensions underlying the Act, such as that between the desire of executors and administrators...

This article considers the New Zealand High Court decision of Re Russell: Public Trust v Whyman, which was concerned with the death provisions of the Property (Relationships) Act 1976 (PRA). The author analyses the decision in detail, and concludes that it reveals a disturbing level confusion...

Indigenous governments in Canada are increasingly authorized to adopt laws that convert communally held lands to individual fee simple. They will convert title to fee simple in order to obtain the economic benefits commonly associated with private ownership and its securitization. However,...

This Chapter, forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook on Property, Law and Society, the maps the intertwinement, mutual construction, and dependence of “property” and “race” with each other. The discussion examines three dimensions of property which demonstrate the socio-cultural,...

The central question of environmental law is "how much?" How much pollution should we emit into the air and water? How much resource exploitation should we engage in? While for other "how much" questions our society tends to rely (at least in theory) on the market, when it comes to environmental...

Many modern-day Americans think about legal rights in a dualistic fashion. "Personal rights" fall on one side of the divide, while "property rights" fall on the other, and these categories of rights often are deemed to be separate and distinct. This essay, which introduces a symposium on...

Amendments to the Louisiana Civil Code revived the potential for a testament to utilize the fidei commissum de residuo, while maintaining that the distinct fidei commissum is still prohibited. However, the Civil Code is silent as to the composition of the residual interest resulting from...

Do “cultural factors” substantively influence the creation and evolution of property institutions? For the past several decades, few legal scholars have answered affirmatively. Those inclined towards a law and economics methodology tend to see property institutions as the outcome of...

In the last two decades, a renewed interest in property rights have challenged the accepted interpretation of property rights as “bundle of rights” over the use of things and have rehabilitated the old classical interpretation of property rights as exclusive (absolute) dominium over things...

This essay presents a new argument for the societal role of government. Traditionally anchored in the classic Hobbesian rationale, government's classic function has been taken to be the provision of security: Government is provided a monopoly in the rule of force in order to ensure protection...