Property rights and regulatory innovation: Comparing constitutional cultures

International Journal of Constitutional Law

Volumn 4, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 371-391

  Schneiderman, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

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EID: 33745936188     PISSN: 14742640     EISSN: 14742659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/icon/mol009     Document Type: Article

References (132)

1. Alexis de Tocqueville, Journey to America 202 (Harvey C. Mansfield & Delba Winthrop trans., Yale Univ. Press 2000).
2. Marc R. Poirier, The Virtue of Vagueness in Takings Doctrine, 24 Cardozo L. Rev. 93, 179 (2000).
3. Carol Rose, Property and Expropriations: Themes and Variations in American Law, 2000 Utah L. Rev. 1, 18, 23.
4. Margaret Jane Radin, Reinterpreting Property 162 (Univ. Chicago Press 1993).
5. See Linda Weiss, The Myth of the Powerless State (Cornell Univ. Press 1998).
6. Marc R. Poirier, The Virtue of Vagueness in Takings Doctrine, 24 Cardozo L. Rev. 93, 179 (2000). Perhaps best translated as "repairable mistakes." Tocqueville, supra note 2, at 339.
7. Id. at 216.
8. Id. at 222.
9. Id. at 216.
10. This is a good example of Tocqueville's ambiguous embrace of democracy, well described by Holmes: "He defended what to some extent he disliked, and he admired what to some degree he feared." See Stephen Holmes, Both Sides Now, The New Republic, March 4, 2002, at 34.
11. A.G. Canada v. A.G. Ontario, [1898] A.C. 700 (P.C.). According to Lord Herschell, the "suggestion that the [federal] power might be abused so as to amount to a practical confiscation of property does not warrant the imposition by the Courts of any limit upon the absolute power of legislation conferred." Supra, at 713.
12. A.H.F. Lefroy, The Law of Legislative Power in Canada 2 79 (Toronto Law Book Pub. Co. 1897-1898).
13. See Jennifer Nedelsky, Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism: The Madisonian Framework and Its Legacy (Univ. Chicago Press 1990).
14. See William J. Novak, The People's Welfare: Law And Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (Univ. of N.C. Press 1996).
15. Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1025-1028 (1992).
16. Id.
17. See Gregory S. Alexander, Commodity And Propriety: Competing Visions of Property in American Legal Thought (Univ. Chicago Press 1997).
18. John Brigham, Property and the Politics of Entitlement 136 (Temple Univ. Press 1990).
19. I have been developing this notion of constitutional culture in various articles. The most recent iteration, and from which this section borrows, can be found in Banging Constitutional Bibles: Observing Constitutional Culture in Transition, 55 U. Toronto L.J. 833 (2005).
20. See Robert F. Nagel, Constitutional Cultures: The Mentality and Consequences of Judicial Review (Univ. Cal. Press 1989).
21. See, e.g., Constitutional Culture and Democratic Rule (John Ferejohn et al. eds., Cambridge Univ. Press 2001).
22. See also Constitutional Cultures (Miroslaw Wyrzykowski ed., Institute of Public Affairs 2000). A welcome exception to this general observation is Robert C. Post, Foreword: Fashioning the Legal Constitution: Culture, Courts, and Law, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 4 (2003), which invokes a narrower conception of constitutional culture than the one Suggested here.
23. Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era 8 (Princeton Univ. Press 2002).
24. Margaret Jane Radin, Reinterpreting Property 162 (Univ. Chicago Press 1993). Radin, supra note 4, at 169.
25. Id. at 167.
26. Hermann Heller, The Nature and Structure of the State, 18 Cardozo L. Rev. 1139, 1185-1186 (David Dyzenhaus trans., 1996).
27. Id. at 1187.
28. Id. at 1191.
29. Id.
30. Hermann Heller, The Nature and Structure of the State, 18 Cardozo L. Rev. 1139, 1185-1186 (David Dyzenhaus trans., 1996).
31. Id. at 1187.
32. This formulation is not intended to encompass as broad a number of political, economic, and social institutions as John Rawls's "basic structure," the elements of which would claim to have a singular unity. See John Rawls, Political Liberalism 11, 202 (Columbia Univ. Press 1993). Nor is this formulation as shallow as Mark Tushnet's "thin constitution," used to explain the general U.S. constitutional guarantees of equality and liberty, in contrast to the "thick constitution" of detailed provisions and rules.
33. See Mark V. Tushnet, Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts 9-11 (Princeton Univ. Press 1999).
34. The Civic Culture Revisited 12 (Gabriel A. Almond & Sidney Verba eds., Little, Brown 1965).
35. Lawrence M. Friedmann, Legal Culture and Social Development, 4 Law & Soc'y Rev. 29, 34 (1969).
36. See, e.g., Constitutional Culture and Democratic Rule (John Ferejohn et al. eds., Cambridge Univ. Press 2001). Post, supra note 20, at 8. Post admittedly would include the views of judicial actors if he were asking a different research question. Id. at 8 n. 27.
37. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Order-Maintaining and Order-Transforming Dimensions of Culture, in Theory Of Culture 83 (Richard Münch & Neil J. Smelser eds., Univ. Cal. Press 1992).
38. Justice W. R. Riddell, The Constitutions of the United States and Canada, 32 Can. L. Times 849 (1912).
39. Id. at 870.
40. W.P.M. Kennedy, Some Aspects of the Theories and Workings of Constitutional Law 17 (Macmillan 1932).
41. See Bruce H. Ziff, Principles of Property Law (3d ed. Carswell 2000).
42. Sir Peter Maxwell, On the Interpretation of Statutes 388-400 (3d ed. Sweet & Maxwell 1896).
43. See Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America 59 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1955) and The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia (Louis Hartz ed., Harcourt, Brace & World 1964).
44. See Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America 59 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1955) and The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia (Louis Hartz ed., Harcourt, Brace & World 1964). Hartz, supra note 38, at 59.
45. Cass Sunstein, The Partial Constitution 23 (Harvard Univ. Press 1993).
46. Seymour Martin Lipset, Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada 43-44 (Routledge 1990).
47. See Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America 59 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1955) and The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia (Louis Hartz ed., Harcourt, Brace & World 1964). See Hartz, supra note 38, at 34.
48. Gad Horowitz, Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation, 32 Can. J. Econ. & Pol. Sci. 143 (1966).
49. H.D. Forbes, Hartz-Horowitz at Twenty: Nationalism, Toryism and Socialism in Canada and the United States, 20 Can. J. Pol. Sci. 287 (1987).
50. See S.F. Wise, God's Pecullar Peoples: Essays on Political Culture in Nineteenth Century Canada (McGill-Queen's Univ. Press 1993).
51. Peter J. Smith & Janet Ajzenstat, Canada's Origins: The New Debate, 1:2 Nat'l History 113, 115 (1997).
52. See J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton Univ. Press 1975).
53. Peter J. Smith, The Ideological Origins of Canadian Confederation, 20 Can. J. Pol. Sci. 1 (1987)
54. and Louis-George Harvey, The First Distinct Society: French Canada, America and the Constitution of 1791, in Canada's Origins: Liberal, Tory or Republican? (Janet Azjenstat & Peter J. Smith eds., Carleton Univ. Press 1995).
55. Peter J. Smith, The Ideological Origins of Canadian Confederation, 20 Can. J. Pol. Sci. 1 (1987)
56. Azjenstat & Smith, supra note 46, at 118.
57. See Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic (Univ. N.C. Press 1969).
58. As Gordon Stewart notes, the mainstream reform movement "best characterized by the Baldwin family, remained committed to monarchy, hierarchy, and executive control of patronage," characteristics that exemplify what has been called "court" ideology and not those of civic humanism. Gordon T. Stewart, The Origins of Canadian Politics: A Comparative Approach 28 (Univ. B.C. Press 1986).
59. Charles Taylor, Reconciling The Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism 59 (McGill-Queen's Univ. Press 1993).
60. W.P.M. Kennedy, The Nature of Canadian Federalism, in Essays in Constitutional Law 49 (Oxford Univ. Press 1934).
61. James Willard Hurst, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in Nineteenth-Century United States 53 (Univ. Wisconsin Press 1956).
62. On the connection between Tocqueville's account and Jacksonian American values, see Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief 31, 89 (Stanford Univ. Press 1957).
63. Leonard Levy, The Law of the Commonwealth and Chief Justice Shaw 305 (Harvard Univ. Press 1957)
64. and Oscar Handlin & Mary Flug Handlin, Commonwealth: A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 1774-1861, 30-31 (rev. ed. N.Y.U. Press 1969).
65. James Willard Hurst, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in Nineteenth-Century United States 53 (Univ. Wisconsin Press 1956). Hurst, supra note 54, at 182
66. see James Willard Hurst, Law and Economic Growth: The Legal History of the Lumber Industry in Wisconsin (Belknap Press 1964).
67. Carol Rose, Property and Expropriations: Themes and Variations in American Law, 2000 Utah L. Rev. 1, 18, 23.
68. Novak, supra note 13, at 36.
69. Id. at 247.
70. See Gregory S. Alexander, Commodity And Propriety: Competing Visions of Property in American Legal Thought (Univ. Chicago Press 1997). Alexander, Supra note 16, at 1-2,
71. Carol Rose, Property and Expropriations: Themes and Variations in American Law, 2000 Utah L. Rev. 1, 18, 23.
72. and Rose, supra note 3, at 5 8-62.
73. See Laura S. Underkuffler, The Idea of Property: Its Meaning and Power (Oxford Univ. Press 2003).
74. See Laura S. Underkuffler, The Idea of Property: Its Meaning and Power (Oxford Univ. Press 2003).
75. Id. at 40.
76. Id. at 46.
77. Id. at 48.
78. See Laura S. Underkuffler, The Idea of Property: Its Meaning and Power (Oxford Univ. Press 2003).
79. Id. at 52.
80. Marc R. Poirier, The Virtue of Vagueness in Takings Doctrine, 24 Cardozo L. Rev. 93, 179 (2000). Poirier, supra note 2, at 93, 103.
81. Carol Rose, Property and Expropriations: Themes and Variations in American Law, 2000 Utah L. Rev. 1, 18, 23. Rose, supra note 3 at 5.
82. See Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America 59 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1955) and The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia (Louis Hartz ed., Harcourt, Brace & World 1964). Hartz, supra note 38, at 59.
83. James Willard Hurst, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in Nineteenth-Century United States 53 (Univ. Wisconsin Press 1956). Hurst, supra note 54, at 24.
84. See William E. Forbath, Law and the Shaping of the American Labour Movement (Harvard Univ. Press 1991).
85. Id. at 170.
86. Mark V. Tushnet, Foreword: The New Constitutional Order and the Chastening of Constitutional Aspiration, 113 Harv. L. Rev. 26, 65 (1999).
87. Id. at 63, 76.
88. Richard W. Bauman, Business, Economic Rights and the Charter, in Charting the Consequences: The Impact of Charter Rights on Canadian Law and Politics 58 (David Schneiderman & Kate Sutherland eds., Univ. Toronto Press 1997).
89. Richard W. Bauman, Living in a Material World: Property Rights in the Charter, 3 Const. Forum 49, 50 (1992).
90. New Brunswick Broadcasting Co. Ltd. v. CRTC, [1984] 2 F.C. 410.
91. Authorson v. Canada (Attorney General), [2003] 2 S.C.R. 40, para. 51.
92. R.J. Bauman, Exotic Expropriations: Government Action and Compensation, 52 The Advocate 561, 574 (1994).
93. Mariner Real Estate Ltd. v. Nova Scotia (Attorney General), [1999] 68 L.C.R. 1.
94. Id.
95. A.G. Canada v. A.G. Ontario, [1898] A.C. 700 (p.C.). According to Lord Herschell, the "suggestion that the [federal] power might be abused so as to amount to a practical confiscation of property does not warrant the imposition by the Courts of any limit upon the absolute power of legislation conferred." Supra, at 713. A.G. Canada, supra note 10.
96. Daniel Drache, Integration Without Convergence? The North American Model of Integration, 8 Canada Watch 63, 64 (2000).
97. The Mexican property regime is discussed in more detail in Schneiderman, Default Convergence: Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in North America, in North American Politics: Globalization and Culture (Radha Jhapan et al. eds., forthcoming Broadview Press).
98. Gloria L. Sandrino, NAFTA Investment Chapter and Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico: A Third World Perspective, 27 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 259 (1994),
99. and Jorge Vargas, NAFTA, The Chiapas Rebellion, and the Emergence of Mexican Ethnic Law, 1 Cal. W. Int'l L.J. 13 (1994).
100. Léon Duguit, Manuel De Droit Constitutionnel (3d ed. 1918).
101. Manuel R. Garcia-Mora, The Calvo Clause in Latin American Constitutions and International Law, 33 Marq. L. Rev. 205 (1950).
102. Nora Hamilton, The Limits of State Autonomy: Post-Revolutionary Mexico 63 (Princeton Univ. Press 1982).
103. The Mexican property regime is discussed in more detail in Schneiderman, Default Convergence: Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in North America, in North American Politics: Globalization and Culture (Radha Jhapan et al. eds., forthcoming Broadview Press). Schneiderman, supra note 83.
104. Mexico, Report of the Legislative Process attached to the decree of publication of the Law of Expropriation, in 10 Dec. 1993 Official Federal Gazette (1993). I am grateful to Rodrigo Garcia Galindo for translation of this passage from Spanish into English.
105. David Schneiderman, NAFTA's Takings Rule: American Constitutionalism Comes to Canada, 46 U. Toronto L.J. 499 (1996)
106. and David Schneiderman, Investment Rules and the New Constitutionalism, 25 Law & Soc. Inquiry 757 (2000).
107. See John Elster, Ulysses Unbound (Cambridge Univ. Press 2000).
108. Thomas Wälde & Stephen Dow, Treaties and Regulatory Risk in Infrastructure Investment, 34(2) J. of World Trade 1 (2000)
109. and Rudolf Dolzer, Indirect Expropriations: New Developments?, 11 N.Y.U. Envtl. L.J. 64, 65 (2002).
110. See generally Pennsylvania Coal v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393 (1922).
111. Alexis De Tocqueville, Journey To America 202 (Harvey C. Mansfield & Delba Winthrop trans., Yale Univ. Press 2000). Tocqueville, supra note 1, at 382. For more on this distinction between "change" and "revolution," see Meyers,
112. On the connection between Tocqueville's account and Jacksonian American values, see Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief 31, 89 (Stanford Univ. Press 1957). Supra note 55, at 31.
113. Alexis de Tocqueville, Journey to America 169 (George Lawrence trans., J.P. Mayer ed., Yale Univ. Press 1959).
114. The former threat arose under the earlier incarnation of the rule in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, which did not entitle investors to sue directly but, rather, through the intermediary of the investor's home state.
115. David Schneiderman, NAFTA's Takings Rule: American Constitutionalism Comes to Canada, 46 U. Toronto L.J. 499 (1996) Schneiderman (1996), supra note 90.
116. Stephen Chase, Tobacco Firm Warns 'Mild' Cigarette Ban May Violate NAFTA, The Globe and Mail, March 16, 2002, at A6.
117. New Brunswick Select Committee on Public Automobile Insurance, 2004a. Final Report on Public Automobile Insurance in New Brunswick, available at www.gnb.ca/legis/business/committees/reports/2004auto/report-e.asp.
118. Steven Shrybman & Scott Sinclair, Public Auto Insurance and Trade Treaties, 5:1 Briefing Papers, available at www.policyalternatives.org/ documents/National_Office_Pubs/brief5-1.pdf (2004).
119. The following paragraph is drawn from David Schneiderman, Taking Investments Too Far: Expropriation in the Semi-periphery, in Governing Under Stress: Middle Powers and the Challenge of Globalization 218 (Marjorie Griffin-Cohen & Stephen Clarkson eds., Zed Books 2004), where the NAFTA rulings are discussed in more detail.
120. Pope & Talbot, Inc. and the Government of Canada, Interim Award, 2001 (13) World Trade & Arb. Materials 19, para. 96 (June 26, 2000).
121. Metalclad Corporation and the United Mexican States, 2001 (13) World Trade & Arb. Materials 47, para. 103 (2001).
122. S.D. Myers, Inc. v. Government of Canada, 40 Int'l Legal Materials, 1408 (2001).
123. Julie Solway & Jeremy Broadhurst, What's in the Medicine Chest for Chapter 11's Ills?, 36 Can. Bus. L.J. 388, 395 (2002)
124. Vicki Been & Joel C. Beauvais, The Global Fifth Amendment: NAFTA's Investment Protections and the Misguided Quest for an International 'Regulatory Takings' Doctrine, 78 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 30, 37, 128 (2003).
125. The following paragraph is drawn from David Schneiderman, Taking Investments Too Far: Expropriation in the Semi-periphery, in Governing Under Stress: Middle Powers and the Challenge of Globalization 218 (Marjorie Griffin-Cohen & Stephen Clarkson eds., Zed Books 2004), where the NAFTA rulings are discussed in more detail. Schneiderman, supra note 101. Since the completion of this paper, a NAFTA tribunal released its ruling in Methanex v. United States of America (2005), available at www.state.gov/documents/organization/51052.pdf. The panel read the takings rule narrowly and denied Methanex's claim that a California regulation banning the use of the fuel additive MTBE in gasoline sold in the state was tantamount to an expropriation. The tribunal found that "as a matter of general international law, a non-discriminatory regulation for a public purpose, which is enacted in accordance with due process and which affects, inter alia, a foreign investor or investment is not deemed expropriatory and compensable unless specific commitments had been given by the regulating government to the then putative foreign investor contemplating investment that the government would refrain from such regulation."
126. Id. at pt. IV, ch. D, para. 7. This narrow reading should be contrasted with broader formulations offered by earlier panels discussed above. See supra notes 101-104. None, however, form binding precedent as would opinions of a high court. Thus, later panels will have to sift through these conflicting interpretations for guidance.
127. Vicki Been & Joel C. Beauvais, The Global Fifth Amendment: NAFTA's Investment Protections and the Misguided Quest for an International 'Regulatory Takings' Doctrine, 78 N.Y.U.L. Rev. 30, 37, 128 (2003).
128. The act recognizes that U.S. law "on the whole provides a high level of protection for investment" and that among the "principal negotiating objectives" of the U.S. is to ensure that foreign investors in the U.S. "are not accorded greater substantive rights with respect to investment protections than United States investors in the United States, and to secure for investors rights comparable to those that would be available under United States legal principles and practice." §2102(b)(3). To that end negotiators should seek to establish standards for expropriation and compensation for expropriation "consistent with United States legal principles and practice."
129. Id.
130. See generally Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 104 (1977).
131. For a discussion of other problematic aspects of the U.S.-Australia free trade agreement, see Linda Weiss, Elizabeth Thurborn & John Mathews, How to Kill a Country: Australia's Devastating Trade Deal with the United States (Allen & Unwin 2004).
132. See generally Pennsylvania Penn Central, supra note 109, at 124 and U.S. Trade Representative, Letter of Exchange (May 6, 2003).