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Common Law Concepts Essay

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CONCEPT 1 – COMPENSATION AS A WAY TO REDUCE NUISANCE (Hogan & Edwards, 2003) states the idea of compensation in Common Law is to protect the environment as it amplifies the need for organisations and individuals within a society to prevent nuisance. Furthermore, compensation concept has raised conflict between environmental concerns and restricts the property holder’s rights to fully utilize their resources. Nevertheless, the idea of compensation can also be seen as an ethical guideline for the society, of which if any laws were to be broken, for example harming the environment, appropriate punishments will be conducted. Therefore, the act of compensation may lead to a greater cause in the long run for society to reduce nuisance. To …show more content…

A real business example is Santos, a major Australian oil and gas exploration and production company compensating farmers in Queensland. According to (Bahnisch, 2012) Santos, the company compensated private landowners majorly farmers for AUD2500 per well, in order to conduct a search for coal seam gas. This action identifies the exploitation of compensation as a method to appease landowners rather than preventing nuisance. Furthermore this evidently shows contradiction towards the idea of compensation, which sole purpose was to prevent or eliminate any form of nuisance caused towards the environment. Overall, this example may show flaws of compensation to reduce nuisance and to protect the environment however, it is arguable that the outcome for the search of coal seam gas in private lands can be of a greater cause. The means justify the ends. Overall as an urban planner, the existence of compensation hinder planner to propose a master plan. This is because urban planner would need to construct an optimum master plan that appease both the government and the society due to the existence of private and public land ownership. Hence to avoid and reduce the risk of

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