Abstract:
Is land becoming a global commodity? Who are the actors shaping such a cross-border market for real estate and who remains excluded from participating in it? Which types of interrelations do local and supranational legal systems have in ordering property rights and other legal interests in what is otherwise considered the quintessential location-fixed asset? How are law, economics, politics, and culture likely to interact in the context of land in an age of increasing globalization?
This chapter underscores the tension between the conceptual oddity and practical significance of cross-border effects of land law, and shows how the scope and nature of such extraterritorial implications have changed significantly over the past few decades in view of certain political, economic, and social processes. This turn of events constantly puts pressure on national legal systems that had traditionally viewed this field as literally embodying the law of the land. At the same time, current market trends toward globalization are far from resulting in clear-cut convergence among legal systems or in a shift of the mainstay of legal ordering to the supranational realm. This chapter analyzes the inherent dilemmas and challenges that land law faces in adequately addressing the changing landscape of real estate in the age of globalization.
Lehavi, Amnon, Land Law in the Age of Globalization and Land Grabbing (January 6, 2015). Forthcoming in Research Handbook on Comparative Property Law (M Graziadei and L Smith eds, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015).
First posted 2015-01-08 18:31:10
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