Private Property as a Bundle of Rights

How many different rights can you identify on the diagram to the left? Classify them by surface and sub-surface rights.

When you buy property all of these rights could be included or only one of these rights might be. Often people assume that they own all these rights when they buy property! U.S. law vests mineral rights with the owners of land under which the minerals lie, whereas wildlife is typically the property of the state, regardless of location. In contrast, Zimbabwean wildlife now belongs to the owner of land on which it resides, while mineral rights belong to the state. In Israel, all land is owned by the state; individuals only have user rights.

Mining laws also play an important role in how land resources are used and for whose benefits. The U.S. Mining Act of 1978 states that no government agency can refuse mining permits on federal land or charge royalties for hard rock minerals, such as gold and uranium. But gas, oil, and timber companies have to pay royalties, up to 12.5 percent of gross income, when extracted from federal lands.

Ground water management in Texas relies on English common law of "absolute ownership," permitting landowners to withdraw as much water as they can use. But New Mexico uses the doctrine of "prior appropriation" -- first in time, first in right but water must be left for others. Under Islamic laws water can not be owned by individuals and water distribution should ensuring equity.

Concepts of property extend to national property as well. President Harry Truman unilaterally proclaimed that the continental shelf adjacent to U.S. territorial waters and outward to the edge of the shelf  was U.S. territory -- a distance of 24 miles.

Before the U.S. became involved in the Second War II, it unilaterally drew a 200-mile "neutrality zone" around the Americas. Canada claims a 200-nautial-mile "exclusive economic zone" for fishing under the 1982 Law of the Sea. Nearly all fish worth harvesting is within 200 miles of land. The United Nations Law of the Sea is designed to regulate national territorial claims in the world oceans.

China, like most other countries, makes very different territorial claims for its exclusive economic zone and off-shore water claims.