A few considerations upon the basic issues governing the regulation of subsoil

Abstract

The author holds that, though this does not discount its adaptation to the profound social and economic changes of the century in course, the entire civil law structure in the main here still pivots upon corner stones established during the period of its original setting up and that these were drawn from models taken from the french example. Although a process of making them more public has led to property rights being now seen in terms of property-utility, this as a consequence of administrative enactments in the field of town and country planning that have set limits on the dimensioning of these property rights in the vertical or horizontal traditionally ascribed to their scope, the same cannot be said to have happened when these rights are, though indeed in the vertical, considered as appertaining to the subsoil. The paper then speaks of the way that modern building techniques have made it possible to exploit this same subsoil in a way hitherto unimaginable and argues that this makes a call for a defining of just how deep a proprietor ' s property rights could be said to run. Beginning from the actual status quo, the paper seeks to an offer an answer to this question in keeping with present day demands. Basing himself upon both scientific progress and that made of late in constitutional doctrine, the author then maintains that town and country planning regulation offers now a focus upon which a positive and final dimensioning of the claims of private ownership property rights in any or all dimensions could be so defined as to leave to the public domain all subsoil not within such claims.