Week 3 TOC

PS536, Global Environmental Law and Policy 

Spring Semester 2008

Session Outline - Week 3

The Problem of Commons

Opening quotation-----

"What is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.  Everybody thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all 

of the common interest."   ----Aristotle

I.   Commonly Used Concepts (no pun intended)

• Commons

• Common Pool (or Property) Resource

• Shared Resource

• Public Good

• Common Heritage

• Common Concern

• Common Heritage Domains

                Seabed

                Moon and Celestial Bodies 

• Ambiguous

                Outer Space

                Atmosphere  ("common concern") 

VI.  Avoiding a Tragedy 

• Voluntary Restraint

• Regulatory Regime  (rules,  limits (quotas))

• Market Mechanisms  (taxes)

• Partitions (Privatization)

• Public Enterprise  (Socialism)

VII.   Examples of Tragedy Averting Strategies at the International Level 

• Prohibitions

                Nuclear Test Ban 

                Moratorium on Whaling 

• Quantitative Limits

                Fishing quotas 

                Air pollutants  (e.g. CFCs) 

• Equipment and Operations

                Oil Tankers

                Telecommunications 

• Partitions     

  • Seabed

  •        

  • Electromagnetic Specturm

  • Geostationary Orbit

                                          (a posteriori versus a priori) 

VIII.   Regime Goals 

• Environmental Values

• Maximum Sustainable Use

• Economic Efficiency

• Equity

• Feasibility

Parting Quotations from Garrett Hardin

"Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring on universal ruin; once they see the necessity of mutual coercion, they become free to pursue other goals."

"Freedom is the recognition of necessity."