Acquisition of Property by First Possession

Question 1

Ferae Naturae

Answer 1

Wild Animals

Question 2

Ratione Soli

Answer 2

“By reason of the soil”

An owner of land has constructive possession of wild animals on the owner’s land. In other words, landowners are regarded as the prior possessors of any wild animals on their land, until the animals take off

This can also be used for landowners and lost property

Question 3

Tragedy of the Commons

Answer 3

An economics problem in which every individual has an incentive to consume a resource, but at the expense of every other individual – with no way to exclude anyone from consuming

Question 4

Limited-Access Commons

Answer 4

An arrangement whereby a group of individuals permits each group member to exploit the collective resource, but outsiders are prohibited from doing likewise

Question 5

Externalities

Answer 5

Also called “social costs”. Exist whenever some person makes a decision about how to use resources without taking full account of the effects of the decision. As a consequence, resources tend to be misused or misallocated, which is to say used in one way when another would make society as a whole better off

Question 6

Rule of Capture

Answer 6

If you catch it first, it is yours

Question 7

Fugitive Resources (Hammonds)

Answer 7

Because they are to be treated like “wild animals”, when they “escape” or are “restored to their natural wild and free state, the dominion and individual proprietorship of any person over them is at an end and they resume their status as common property.”

Question 8

Rule of Absolute Ownership (English)

Answer 8

Allowed each landowner over an aquifer to withdraw freely without regard to effects on neighbors

Question 9

Rule of Reasonable Use (American)

Answer 9

Rule of capture but with the slight addition that wasteful uses of water, if they actually harmed neighbors, were considered unreasonable and hence unlawful

Question 10

Prior Appropriation

Answer 10

The person who first appropriated (captures) water and puts it to reasonable and beneficial use has a right superior to later appropriators

Question 11

Riparian Rights

Answer 11

Each owner of land along a water source (riparian land) has a right to use the water, subject to the rights of other riparians