Property, rights, and fairness (original) (raw)

2001, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy

Property, rights, and fairness This theme issue is based on papers presented during a two-day workshop on``Property Rights and Distribution Issues'' held on the 9 and 10 July 1999 as part of the EU Concerted Action on Environmental Valuation in Europe (EVE) (see box 1). The workshop was financed by the Swiss Federal Office of Education and Science and it included academics from several European countries, representing diverse disciplines such as economics, geography, human ecology, law, and philosophy. The workshop participants also included staff of international organizations (for example, the World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization), the European Commission (DG 11), and nongovernment organizations in Geneva (the South Centre and DOCIP). We thank the Swiss Federal Office of Education and Science, the authors of papers in this theme issue, all the other workshop participants, and the reviewers of papers for their kind cooperation to achieve this publication. The first paper by Bhaskar Vira, from the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge is titled``Claiming legitimacy: analysing conflict in the environmental policy process''. Vira's paper presents a conceptual framework for the analysis of conflicting claims in the context of decisionmaking. This is a complex topic because people have different, sometimes conflicting, interests and values about environmental issues and what is socially desirable. From this perspective, Vira discusses how and why rights and property rights are necessary analytical tools for the study of environmental policy. Vira stresses that``the notion of rights ... includes, among others, the right to property'' (pages 638^639). Hence it is essential to distinguish between rights and property rights when dealing with environmental policy. Vira then argues that both are not sufficient to deal with all aspects of environmental decisionmaking, because morals, meanings, and identities are not reducible to rights. This paper examines how rights are interpreted according to social norms and values. They are social constructs that can be interpreted according to circumstances, and they can be modified over time. This view differs from other philosophical interpretations of`natural rights' founded on the argument that collective consent Guest editorial