The socio-environmental function of property: another paradigm

Abstract

The principle of the social function of property, in addition to the economic and social aspects (in the strict sense), has an environmental feature. The present work promoted a review of the bibliography on the subject, having as its core the construction of this implication relationship between the dominial and environmental aspects. From a historical and legal narrative, in which the contributions of Aristotle, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, Fustel de Coulages, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Leon Duguit were considered, it was described how property was constituted. initially as an individual right, as well as its process of conversion into a legal institute conditioned to a social function. Taking into account the advent of the modern environmental crisis, notably due to its repercussions for the theme under consideration, it was analyzed, from Enrique Leff's work, the importance of introducing the notion of sustainability as conditioning to the social function of property, adherence to the need to consider a new feature, including formal, to the principle under consideration, in order to designate it as the socio-environmental function of property. In this sense, this measure was pointed not only as a matter of nomenclature, but as a symbolic character, intended to reinforce the relevance and urgency of giving due attention to environmental issues.