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A legal discussion of takings of real estate and ‘public use’ requirements for economic revitalization focusing on US Case Law - Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005) -

  • Legal Theory & Practice Review
  • Abbr : LTPR
  • 2020, 8(2), pp.91-123
  • Publisher : The Korea Society for Legal Theory and Practice Inc.
  • Research Area : Social Science > Law
  • Received : April 27, 2020
  • Accepted : May 19, 2020
  • Published : May 31, 2020

Kim, Sang-Jin 1 Han, Jong-Beom 1

1세명대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution addresses that “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor be obliged to relinquish his property, where it may be necessary for public use, without just compensation.” The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution also provide that “no shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The same applies to the constitutions of individual states. The majority opinion is that in the United States, three conditions must be met to takings private property. That is, due process of law, just compensation and public use. Meanwhile, before the new state was established, the federal government had already granted land rights to original local residents. In other words, under federal systems such as the United States, both the federal and state governments are sovereign and do not possess absolute rights or interests in land. The constitutional provisions on expropriation appear to be dormant but are still attracting attention from the courts and academia. In the United States at the end of the 19th century, government condemnation activities appeared more and more frequently following the development of the Second Industrial Revolution and urbanization. The federal and state governments were also accepting to promote the economy, and the construction of large-scale economic facilities was becoming more active. But there were opponents. They insisted that large-scale eminent domain led to legislative abuse, and that it was necessary to strictly examine the act of forcibly transferring property rights. But there has been a long debate about whether the court has the right to examine. American jurists have sought answers in the classic writings of natural law scholars of the seventeenth-century continent, such as Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, but have not concluded the question of what ‘public use’ is. To prevent abuse of state condemnation power, courts and jurists are debating how to establish the concept of ‘public purpose’ while limiting the exercise of the right of expropriation. The problem has not reached a unified view to this day. This article reviews the legal controversies surrounding US real estate takings.

Citation status

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