Rethinking Original Ownership

Abstract

At the genesis of property, an initial allocation of entitlements takes place. Existing property scholarship identifies two main rules for assigning original ownership – ‘first possession’ and ‘accession’ – and positions them one against another. This article challenges the conventional binary division and the dominance of either first possession or accession as ‘pure’ allocation principles, arguing instead that the ownership of new resources is often allocated through hybrid mechanisms that combine the two rules. This article offers an analysis of hybrid rules and their utility through a novel and contemporary case study of the ongoing allocation of property in wind energy.

Keywords: property, initial allocation, accession, first possession, wind energy