PropertyCon Bram Akkermans

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 first episode of the second season of PropertyCon I speak with Lorna Fox O’Mahony (https://www.essex.ac.uk/people/foxom36509/lorna-fox-o-mahony) and Marc Roark (https://www.sulc.edu/page/marc-l-roark) on the occasion of the publication of their new book Squatting and the State - https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/squatting-and-the-state/8D3FC8E3F55E569CA3001BC1BA8FCBDA.

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 episode I speak with Professor Jessica A. Shoemaker on the difference between US and European property law, about Indian title and about systemic inequality in property law systems. We explore the role of fee simple and/or ownership of land and the way in which this has become unequally distributed over time so that some have accrued vast amounts of wealth, whereas others have (almost) nothing.

More information about Jessica Shoemaker can be found at https://law.unl.edu/jessica-shoemaker/

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In this episode I speak with Benjamin Verheye on his completed PhD research on Land Registration. Since recording Benjamin has successfully defended his PhD thesis at the KU Leuven in Belgium on Tuesday 19 January 2021. In this episode Benjamin and I speak on his findings and his views on land registration in Belgium, France, Germany and England & Wales. 

More information about Benjamin Verheye can be found here: https://www.law.kuleuven.be/goederenrecht/leden/00085153/view

Benjamin's PhD thesis in written in Dutch, but in the podcast he announces his intention to publish his essential findings in English too. 

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