Managing the global commons: common good or common sink?

Abstract

The state of affairs regarding international areas of our planet and their natural resources is popularly labelled 'the tragedy of the global commons' , 1 because of the grave environmental threats facing these areas and the inchoate regimes governing them. This article examines the merits of such a characterisation by first providing some definitions and historical background. Next, it reviews various global resource regimes, which all came into place during the lifetime of the United Nations and with considerable inputs from Third World countries. Although these regimes relate to very different international areas and global resources, and vary considerably, some common characteristics and cross-cutting problems can be identified. The following section discusses how these regimes have at the same time given rise to innovative forms of global governance and standard setting, which so far have not easily come about in the context of national resource regimes. The conclusion answers the question, 'Do the global commons serve as laboratories for proper resource management, and can they hence be viewed as a promise for the future rather than a tragedy?' Some notes on terminology The term 'global commons' denotes areas and natural resources that are not subject to the national jurisdiction of a particular state but are shared by other states, if not the international

Routledge Handbook of the Study of the Commons

“…In practice, resources from the global commons can be surveyed for exploratory purposes (e.g., bioprospecting), although this process is subject to international agreements and special treaties like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (Nicholson, 2002;Schrijver, 2016).…”

Off-the-shelf digital tools as a resource to nurture the commons

“…Environmental sustainability is arguably an intrinsic component of commons, as commons emerged as a means to guarantee sustainable management of natural resources [62]. Moreover, global threats such as ozone depletion or climate change, lead to the legal attempts to manage overarching environmental elements (e.g., the atmosphere or the oceans) as "global commons" [73]. Digital commons -a subset of commons where the resources to be managed are created and/or maintained online [32] -arguably inherit a connection with sustainability.…”

“…Supporting environmental sustainability. As presented in section 2.2, the debate on commons and sustainability spans from "global commons" such as the atmosphere and the climate system [73] to local resources managed by communities [62], to the sub-set of digital commons, that are created and/or managed online [32]. These levels are mutually intertwined as the global commons depend on the uncountable choices taken on smaller-scale levels, and as the existence of a smaller-scale level (as well as humanity's existence) depends on the maintenance of the global commons.…”

Social and solidarity economy and social and solidarity commons: Towards the (re)discovery of an ethic of the common good?

“…Finally, Schrijver (2016) argues that several natural resources could be included in the vast category of the global commons and, from a legal point of view, three situations may be distinguished: they may be under the national jurisdiction of a single state, beyond national jurisdiction (i.e. in international areas), or shared by two or more states (i.e.…”