PropertyCon

In this podcast Professor Björn Hoops, Professor of Private Law and Sustainability at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands, Víðir Smári Petersen, Associate Professor of Law at The University of Iceland in Reykjavik, and I, Bram Akkermans, Professor of Property Law and Sustainability at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, discuss these three climate cases.

We first discuss the cases in general, after which we highlight important issues, raise questions on what the court did, talk about remedies under the Convention and possibly national law, and we will look at the possible future now that these cases have been decided. We reflect on issues of constitutional, private law, public law, and human rights law.

In the second part, we add our joined expertise in the area of property law to this. Although these cases were not argued on the basis of an infringement to property rights as protected under Article 1 of the First Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights (A1P1) there is a very strong link in the case law of the Court between Articles 2, 8 and A1P1. We therefore explore future possibilities relating to claims to protection of property for climate change.

In the podcast we specifically refer to paragraph 420 of the KlimaSeniorinnen judgment, which reads:

"420. In this connection, the Court notes that, in the specific context of climate change, intergenerational burden-sharing assumes particular importance both in regard to the different generations of those currently living and in regard to future generations. While the legal obligations arising for States under the Convention extend to those individuals currently alive who, at a given time, fall within the jurisdiction of a given Contracting Party, it is clear that future generations are likely to bear an increasingly severe burden of the consequences of present failures and omissions to combat climate change (see paragraph 119 above) and that, at the same time, they have no possibility of participating in the relevant current decision-making processes. By their commitment to the UNFCCC, the States Parties have undertaken the obligation to protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind (see paragraph 133 above; Article 3 of the UNFCCC). This obligation must be viewed in the light of the already existing harmful impacts of climate change, as well as the urgency of the situation and the risk of irreversible harm posed by climate change. In the present context, having regard to the prospect of aggravating consequences arising for future generations, the intergenerational perspective underscores the risk inherent in the relevant political decision-making processes, namely that short-term interests and concerns may come to prevail over, and at the expense of, pressing needs for sustainable policy-making, rendering that risk particularly serious and adding justification for the possibility of judicial review."

More information on the climate cases can be found at: https://www.echr.coe.int/w/grand-chamber-rulings-in-the-climate-change-cases

More academic work on A1P1 ECHR: M. Habdas, B. Hoops, E. Marais, H. Mostert, J. Sluysmans and L. Verstappen (Eds.), Rethining Expropriation Law IV. Things for Climate Justice and Resilience (The Hague: Eleven International, 2024).

We welcome responses and are happy to further elaborate on the judgements and their impact.

In this episode I speak with Malcolm Combe, senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. More information on Malcolm can be found here: https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/combemalcolmmr/

Malcolm and I speak about his research into wrongful-termination of tenancy orders under the 2016 act, but also discuss the wider issues of tenancy protection and property law in Scotland and beyond. In our conversation we try to explore legal characterization of tenancies, as well as their after effects in relation to receiving wrong-termination orders and compensation as well as in relation to returning deposits. 

The article our conversation is based on is Combe and Robson, “A review of the first wrongful-termination orders made under the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016: do they sufficiently protect those misled into giving up a tenancy?” 2021 Jur. Rev. 88.

A link to the article van be found at: https://pureportal.strath.ac.uk/en/publications/a-review-of-the-first-wrongful-termination-orders-made-under-the-

During our conversation we make mention, inter alia, of the books by Michael Heller and James Salzman, Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control our Lives (https://www.amazon.com/Mine-Hidden-Rules-Ownership-Control/dp/0385544723), Simon Winchester, Land. How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World (https://www.amazon.com/Mine-Hidden-Rules-Ownership-Control/dp/0385544723).

In this episode I speak with Prof. Marc L. Roark of Southern University Law Center about his latest project called ‘American Squatter’ in which he explores the role of identity in property in the United States. 

Marc and I speak, amongst others, about 'American atom', about Jefferson’s yeoman farmer and the lower Eastside squatters. 

More information about Marc Roark can be found at https://www.sulc.edu/page/marc-l-roark

This special episode offers a recording of the workshop on property law at the annual Ius Commune Conference (www.iuscommune.eu). The Ius Commune research school is an international research school that organizes an annual conference. In 2020 it was hosted by Maastricht University and had to take place fully online.

This long recording offers (a somewhat edited) recorded of the workshop. The contributions of the speakers were not edited to preserve the content of what was said. Below are the time-markings for each of the speakers. After the contribution from Sjef van Erp, Elsabe van der Sijde and Marc Roark and John Lovett, there is a general discussion on the contributions.

At 00:03:47 Sjef van Erp (Maastricht) speaks on the ownership of data in Corona apps on mobile devices. More information about Sjef is available at https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/s.vanerp

At 00:38:34 Bram Akkermans (Maastricht) opens the first panel on Property and Sustainability and speaks about the need for property and planetary flourishing. More information about Bram is available at https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/b.akkermans

At 00:54:00 Jill Robbie (Glasgow) speaks about Scots experiences with the Covid-19 pandemic and shares her personal insights into what this means for property law. More information about Jill is available at https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/law/staff/jillrobbie/

At 01:07:31 Elsabe van der Sijde (Stellenbosch) speaks about South African experiences with the Covid-19 pandemic and shares her personal insights into what this means for property law. More information about Elsabe is available at https://www.linkedin.com/in/elsabe-van-der-sijde-1b458236/?originalSubdomain=uk

At 01:44:52 Lorna Fox O'Mahony (Essex) speaks about the English, UK and Irish experiences with the Covid-19 pandemic and shares her personal insights into what this means for property law. More information about Lorna is available at https://www.essex.ac.uk/people/foxom36509/lorna-fox-o-mahony

At 02:06:50 Marc Roark and John Lovett speak about the US experiences with the Covid-19 pandemic and share their personal insights into what this means for property law. More information about Marc is available at https://www.sulc.edu/page/marc-l-roark and about John at https://www.loyno.edu/academics/faculty-and-staff-directory/john-lovett.

Join me, Bram Akkermans, property researcher at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, for a new adventure: PropertyCon is a podcast following up the PropertyCon online sessions held in the spring and early summer of 2020. PropertyCon deals with current issues in property law research with a focus on three themes. (1) Social justice, (2) Sustainability and (3) PropTech. Over time more themes can and will likely be added. 

Follow the podcast on Twitter @PropConOnline and follow Bram @BAkkermans. Please do get in touch if you are interested in appearing on an episode in the fall.