Citizen Ownership of the Global Commons: an Exploration of How this Model Could Be Applied to Help Us Solve Global Environmental Problems

Abstract

The paper explores the concept of citizen ownership of the global commons and focuses on specific property rights and management regimes that could be used in order to effectively address the issues of pollution and overuse that impact many of the global commons. There are four major parts to this paper: The first section provides an overview of the theoretical framework that addresses the topic of global commons and sets the stage for the analysis in the following chapters. The second part introduces the reader to the concept of citizen ownership of the global commons and how this concept could work. The third and the forth sections provide an in-depth analysis and assessment of the Sky Trust model developed by Peter Barnes in his book “Who owns the Sky”. The focus is on emphasizing how this model reflects the idea of citizen ownership and how it advances the goal of resource conservation. The last section consists of an imaginary scenario that was developed based on a real case study of a successful fishery in Australia. The aim is to prove that the Sky Trust model could be replicated for the management of other natural resources as well. In the conclusion section it is stressed that the model examined may still have limitations if applied at the global/international level.