미국에 있어서 일조권의 보호

The rights to access and to harness the rays of the sun-solar rights-are extremely valuable. These rights can determine whether and how an individual can take advantage of the sun's light, warmth, or energy, and they can have significant economic consequences. In the United States, attempts to assign solar rights have fallen short. A quarter century ago, numerous American scholars debated this deficiency. They agreed that this country lacked a coherent legal framework for the treatment of solar rights, especially given the emergency of solar collector technology that could transform solar energy into thermal, chemical, or electrical energy. The solar access issue is generally though to involve the potential shading of solar collectors by neighboring structures or vegetation. There is, however, another aspect to the solar access issue：public and private restrictions on the use of property, including restrictive covenants in deed, condominium and homeowner association by laws, architectural controls, and local government ordinances. The issue of solar access in this paper is separated into two areas：solar easements and solar rights. "Solar easements" refers to the ability of one property to continue to receive sunlight across property lines without obstruction from another's property(buildings, foliage, or other impediment). "Solar rights"refers to the ability to install solar energy systems on residential and commercial property that is subject to private restrictions, ie., covenants, conditions, restrictions, bylaws, condominium declarations, as well as local government ordinances and building code. In this context, this article aims to ①the concept of right to sun light, ②debate to solar access rights especially the doctrine of ancient light, ③Solar Shade Control Act(Cal. Pub. Res. Code 25980-25986(2009)), and a comprehensive review of solar access law in the United States, etc.