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Ferreiro, Maria de Fátima (2016). Sustainable Development and Institutions: the case of property rights. 22 annual ISDRS (International Sustainable Development Research Society); Rethink Sustainability Models and Practices: new and old contexts  .

M. D. Ferreiro,  "Sustainable Development and Institutions: the case of property rights", in 22 annual ISDRS (Int. Sustainable Development Research Society); Rethink Sustainability Models and Practices: new and old contexts  , Lisboa, 2016

@misc{ferreiro2016_1766597209587,
	author = "Ferreiro, Maria de Fátima",
	title = "Sustainable Development and Institutions: the case of property rights",
	year = "2016",
	howpublished = "Outro",
	url = "http://isdrs.org/conferences/2016-portugal/"
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Sustainable Development and Institutions: the case of property rights
T2  - 22 annual ISDRS (International Sustainable Development Research Society); Rethink Sustainability Models and Practices: new and old contexts  
AU  - Ferreiro, Maria de Fátima
PY  - 2016
CY  - Lisboa
UR  - http://isdrs.org/conferences/2016-portugal/
AB  - Property rights correspond to one of the central institutions in the debate on sustainability. Nowadays, and in the case of landed property rights, this importance has been worldwide increased by the concerns on food security and climate change. According to Vandana Shiva, “Land is inelastic. Fertile land is a very precious and very scarce resource. It needs to be protected and conserved as an asset of the farmers and as a national heritage to be passed on to future generations. […]. Climate change and peak oil should wake us up to the consequences of destroying our local food economies. (Shiva, 2008: 39).  In fact, the control and use of important natural resources allowed by the institution of property are crucial to food production and the mitigation of climatic changes. The paper presents the institution of property rights considering the contribution of economic theory, namely Classical Political Economists like Jean- Baptiste Say (1803), Thomas R. Malthus (1820), and John Stuart Mill (1848), which present land as a common heritage, and Institutionalism perspective, namely T. R. Ely (1924) and John R. Commons (1934). The presentation of property as an institution, that is, as a set of norms involving rights and duties remit to its social, ethical and political dimension and, thus, to the acknowledgement of its design and evolution in particular contexts, reflecting also prevailing cultural and civilizational values. As Ely points out: “Natural resources are what man has worked with in building up the society […]. In the complex mechanism of economic life as it now exists, natural resources are utilized in a great variety of ways and according to a variety of principles. Men’s relations to each other with respect to land are as fundamental as any other economic relations. In view of the importance of land in relations among men, policies and plans of land utilization should, if they do not already, converge toward one common end. That end is the improvement of the social conditions of living. It is a test or standard by which all principles and policies of land utilization should be measured” (Ely, 1924: 9-10). Besides the theoretical approach, the institutional approach on property considers the Portuguese case through the reference and analysis of the main legal and political tools that defines this particular institution, namely its relation with sustainability. Therefore, and besides the Portuguese Constitution and the Civil Code, the research considers crucial norms to the achievement of the ‘common end’ of sustainability concerning land use. This is the case of Portuguese Land Law, the Environmental Policy and Common Agricultural Policy. This analysis provides the base to address and discuss the design of landed property rights in Portugal in terms of sustainable development goals.  
ER  -