Recent years have seen a globalization of property rights as the Western conception of property over land has extended across the world. As formerly community-owned land and natural resources are privatized and titling schemes proliferate, Property Rights from Below questions the trend toward treating land as a commodity and explores alternatives to the Western model. As we enter an era of resource scarcity and as competition for land and associated natural resources increases, purchasing power cannot become the sole criterion for land allocation; and the law of supply and demand in increasingly financialized markets cannot become the sole metric through which the value of land is determined. Using a range of examples from around the world, Property Rights from Below demonstrates that alternatives to this model often emerge from social innovations supported by local communities and that there is an urgent need for a broader political imagination when it comes to land governance. This innovative cross-disciplinary perspective on the pressing problems surrounding global property rights will be of interest to academics, students and professionals with an interest in property law, development economics and land governance.
For over 40 years, the leading international treaty body on women's rights, the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the CEDAW Committee), has been generating jurisprudence interpreting CEDAW's obligations that states protect the equal rights of women. This book concludes that CEDAW's re-engendering of property--although a flawed and evolving work in progress--has the potential to be transformative for the half of the planet who is more likely to be treated as property than to have any.
This book addresses the right of indigenous peoples to live, own and use their traditional territories, and analyses how international law addresses this. Through its meticulous examination of the interaction between international law and indigenous peoples’ land rights, the work explores several burning issues such as collective rights, self-determination, property rights, cultural rights and restitution of land. It delves into the notion of past violations and the role of international law in providing for remedies, reparation and restitution. It also argues that there is a new phase in the relationship between States, indigenous peoples and private actors, such as corporations, in the making of territorial agreements. The first edition of this ground-breaking book was published in 2006, at the time the negotiations for the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) were still underway. The adoption of the Declaration in 2007 marks an important moment not only in terms of law-making, but also represents the achievement of long decades of lobbying and advocacy from indigenous peoples’ representatives. This fully revised new edition reflects on the 10 years which have followed the adoption of the UNDRIP and examines its impact regarding indigenous peoples’ land rights. Its aim is not only to assess the importance of the UNDRIP in terms of international standards, but also to reflect on the ‘maturing’ of international law in relation to indigenous peoples’ land rights. Over the last 10 years these have reached a new level of visibility and a voluminous new jurisprudence and doctrine have been developed. Praise for the first edition: "Gilbert’s passion for his subject is palpable and illuminates every page, as do his zeal to expose international law’s complicity in indigenous peoples’ loss of their territories and tentative hope that international law might now provide some protection of indigenous peoples’ lands. The choice of topic is also to be applauded. There are few texts that examine indigenous peoples’ land rights in such depth.” Claire Charters, Associate Professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand (in International and Comparative Law Quarterly (ICLQ) "Gilbert’s gaze is firmly fixed on the future and the question how international law will reflect lex ferenda on indigenous land rights. His interpretation of international law must be seen in this light. He is looking beyond the current controversies in the rights discourse towards a more conciliatory phase in state-indigenous relations. International law undoubtedly has an important role to play in his vision, but its primary function is to facilitate dialogue rather than as a combative and adversarial mechanism. (..) Gilbert’s book is a tour de force on indigenous territoriality.” Stephen Allen, Senior Lecturer in Law, Queen Mary University London, United Kingdom (in International Journal on Minority and Group Rights
The histories of rights to minerals, range, timber land, fishery and crude oil production in the U.S. are examined to reveal the problems encountered in negotiations among claimants and the political and economic considerations that influence property rights arrangements.
In 1988, a Roundtable committee, in conjunction with the Industrial Research Institute, developed a set of model agreements to streamline the negotiation process. The intent was that these models would decrease the time and effort needed to develop a research agreement, as well as provide a starting point for companies and universities new to negotiating agreements. In general, the models were well received by the academic and industrial communities. However, one concern, intellectual property rights, continues to pose significant hurdles to successful negotiation. Intellectual Property Rights in Industry-Sponsored University Research: Guide to Alternatives for Research Agreements identifies the contentious issues related to intellectual property rights and develops contract language that makes it easier to negotiate agreements for industry-sponsored university research. This report clarifies issues that cross institutional boundaries when university-industry research agreements are negotiated.
