Designing Property Rights

Eric R. Claeys

doi:10.1017/9781108951395.016

10 - Designing Property Rights

from Part III - Property Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 April 2025

Eric R. Claeys

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Eric R. Claeys: Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia

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Summary

This chapter studies doctrines that consolidate different real-world resources into different res in property law. Some such doctrines classify individual real-world resources as separate res; others consolidate several resources into single res in law. The requirements for natural property rights, namely, claim communication and productive use, provide satisfying foundations for thing design doctrines. The doctrines are then implemented in law and policy via practical reason. This chapter studies doctrines associated with accession, specification, confusion, fugitive or fugacious minerals, the ad coelum maxim, the ratione soli maxim, and fixtures. This chapter also studies how property in land, water flow, and chattels all limit one another. This chapter also studies contemporary policy debates about hydraulic fracturing, including property in oil and natural gas trapped in shale or “tight” rocks.

Keywords

accession ad coelum ratione soli fixtures shale fracking confusion specification

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Type: Chapter
Information: Natural Property Rights , pp. 174 - 200
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108951395.016 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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