Aim of This Book
This book aims to provide solutions to two important problems that property law faces today, namely the degradation of land, natural resources and animal abuseāall covered under the definition of propertyāand, at the same time, the increasing erosion of private property rights from property owners for unjustified reasons. This book manages to connect these two problems and offers a legally based solution resulting in the protection of both.
The highlighted text, sometime in my own words but mainly from case law or legislation is for the better understanding of the tests applied by the courts.
Part I
In the first part of this book, principally Chapters 2, 3, and 4, the aim is for the reader to understand the importance of private property in comparison to other systems, and to see its advantages for a productive, evolving society and its role in the important protection of timeless individual liberties. These chapters will raise an awareness of the enormous and rapidly growing international problem of violation and/or erosion of property rights by the arbitrary interference of state governments that is affecting all kinds of property owners, particularly landowners, landlords of private premises, and owners of small businesses. This valuable and original information will surely be helpful to property owners and their lawyers in their efforts to win their cases against governmental interference.
At the international level, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is reporting an outrageously increasing number of cases being brought relating to the violation of private property rights covered under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the Convention. According to my research and as seen in this book, this is becoming an increasing international problem.
At the same time, in Chapters 8 and 9, this book presents the legal evidence and basic legal explanations for the legally based solutions that aim to better protect fundamental property rights based on my original research findings found within a maze of the most influential political and philosophical texts, along with other academic texts and after an extensive exploration of all the influential origins of property rights, as could only be applied to the specific facts of each property owner separately. Obviously, this also depends on the legal system and social conditions of the state in which the property owner lives, the power of any local authorities, and the specific circumstances of each case.
Chapter 2 demonstrates the current increasing tendency by many governments and in international case law to deprive, violate, interfere or take rights from the individual fundamental right of property in favor of a vaguely interpreted āgeneral interest.ā
Typical methods used by governments for a possible interference in such ways are planning, housing or zoning regulations, the labeling of seemingly deteriorated areas as āblightedā, judicial restraint, the requirements of endless complex regulations and permissions, and civil asset forfeiture together with various procedural blockages, such as unreasonable delays or the almost total lack of provision for court time. As this book shows, those systems are only a small part of a growing number of policies and complex regulations employed by governments in the sometimes seemingly and unjustified āpublic/general interestā that is often used against individual rights and for the governmentās own interests.
Ironically, governmental violations of property rights also occur through the abuse of complex environmental regulations for purposes that are often a long way from concepts of sustainability.
State legislation enacted in the general/ public interest in now a global terminology in national as well as international case law, where courts have to decide if the violation of property rights is for a legitimate aim in the general/public interestāsomething that is often very vaguely interpreted and where there is also a very wide variation in interpretation. Even the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) provides wide discretion for governments to decide whether a purpose of a law enacted by the legislature is legitimate and often holds that decisions by governments must generally be respected.
The second principle which is applied in almost all courts on a global level is that of fair balance , which demands a proportionate relationship between the measures taken by the government for the deprivation/use of the property and the stateās pursuit of the law in the public interest .
International as well as national courts cannot even assure full compensation to any original owners, while in an increasing number of cases of deprivation of property can also occur without any financial compensation to the owners.
This book can therefore help anyone needing to protect his/her private property to have a basic understanding of property rights and, at the same time, to also have a better understanding of the increasing international case law that relates to it and the tests that are applied by the courts. The reader will also be able to find modern case law from Europe and the United States demonstrating the same growing problem along with the tests applied by the courts. This book thus provides a basic explanation of my legally based and unique tailor-made solutions for the protection of our fundamental property rights.
The legal evidence provided in this book should be seen as a raw material for the understanding of the valuable tailored expert advice that my consulting would later provide on an individual basis to property owners and their lawyers or to international organizations about ways to enlarge the international formalisation of the human right to a healthy environment and as such, make it enforceable. This will also include all the information taken from the plethora of influential texts from all periods of property rights with specific examples of implementation on the basis of which property owners and/or their lawyers could have solid arguments for their cases and be better able to protect their property.
Part II
As mentioned earlier, the main part of this book addresses a major problem of our time, namely that of environmental crisis and human...