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Germany faces a challenge unknown since the end of the Second World War. In 2015, around 1.1 million asylum seekers and refugees registered in Germany. The German authorities must provide temporary housing for hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers to safeguard their human dignity, life, health, and physical integrity. As there already is a shortage of housing in the major metropolitan areas, the legislature of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg authorised its authorities temporarily to take possession of vacant privately owned buildings if there is not enough space for refugees in reception camps. This deprivation of the use of the buildings begs the question whether this law complies with the constitutional property clause (Art. 14 of the German Basic Law). In this contribution I argue that the law is not contrary to Art. 14. As Art. 14 requires, taking possession of the buildings is a suitable and necessary means to protect the refugees and asylum seekers. However, as the competent authority imposes an excessive burden upon a small number of owners, the authority will have to award equitable compensation on the basis of the adopted law to ensure the proportionality of the measure.

Ownership has been a key tool in the exploitation of nature for centuries. However, ownership could also shield natural entities from extraction and pollution if it were vested in them, rather than in humans or corporations. Through a case study of German constitutional property law, this article examines the normative content of this constitutional right. It argues that in owning themselves, natural entities would have numerous tools to fend off human interference with their self-determination. Constitutional property law would require any harmful activity affecting the natural entity to be based upon legislation and necessary to achieve a public purpose. The natural entity would enjoy broader access to justice. Courts would also often award appropriate remedies; where the natural entity would be awarded only compensation, this would be unsatisfactory because money cannot replace nature. The article finds that constitutional property law offers the potential for further protection from human interference, which has not been realized because of anthropocentric value judgments prevalent in German legal doctrine. Ecocentric approaches to ownership and invalidity as a standard remedy would play an important role in unlocking the full potential of ownership for environmental protection.

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In different branches of the Dutch legal system, there are categories and rights that serve to protect specific commons through different methods. Sunlight and air (including wind for windmills) can be freely used by everyone. Waters in the sea and rivers are things under private law, but do not have any owner until water is extracted. The seabed of the territorial sea and the Wadden Sea are State-owned and cannot be alienated. State-owned markets, schools, and swimming pools are public things. The public may claim access to private roads. Certain privately owned forests are maintained, in return for tax benefits, in the public interest. Health care, food, education, housing, and environmental protection are protected commons. Nationalisation requires an expropriation unless the owner is willing to sell: property may be expropriated only if in the public interest and the owner is compensated. In private law, there are specific grounds on which a non-owner can claim access to somebody else's land.