How Do Roman Property Rules Deal with Beaches? [No. 86]

Professor Richard Epstein explains how and why, in the Roman system, beaches were always publicly accessible. A strip of land along a waterway could not be claimed by a private owner because that would hamper the ability of people to use the body of water as a means of transportation or for other resources. Common access and public ownership improved the overall efficiency and productivity of the community.

Professor Richard Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.

Subscribe to the series’ playlist:

[qzhk]

Aren't European common laws more pertinent to how the nations framework was developed. No reason to use a single point in our long history and yet you do.