Climate Impacted Littoral Phenomena and Customary Property Rights
Abstract
This article looks at the relationship between different structures of property rights and climate change in littoral areas. It presents a critical historical political economy perspective on the Hohfeldian analysis of property as a legal and jurisprudential concept, primarily by contextualising it as embedded in broader social, economic and environmental relations. Through consideration of contemporary developments in environmental practices in Ghana and Australia, it argues that dramatic changes in customary property rights since their incorporation in the capitalist mode of production have greatly enhanced anthropogenic activities which, in turn, have placed such rights at great risk: of submergence, of losing economic and cultural value, and of disrupting extant economic and biophysical practices. The policy implications arising from such concerns are then considered by addressing issues relating to mitigation and amelioration.References
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