On the Just Distribution of Land Use Rights

The current system of decision making in land use law is not transparent and is open to biased or personal corruption. This gives rise to the possibility of unequal treatment under the law, especially given the judicial reluctance to interfere in reviewing the decision making process. Our solution is an auction mechanism to overcome these problems, under which the local government would be bound to award land use rights to the highest bidder and where offers will be examined in light of their contribution to the society's best interest. Such mechanism has possible benefits in terms of transparency and insurance against favouritism or arbitrariness. The auction mechanism proposes the use of a simple metric (i.e., revealed private value of the competing claims) by which the local government can give a transparent, non-arbitrary, observable, and verifiable response. This mechanism, so we argue, treats each and every person's choices with equal concern and respect. In this sense, the auction is procedurally fair by being conducted between potential bargainers that enjoy equality in background conditions and when means for offsetting brute bad lack are utilized. © 2015 Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence.