Global commons is a term typically used to describe international, supranational, and global
resource domains in which
common-pool resources are found. Global
commons include the earth's shared natural resources, such as the high
oceans, the
atmosphere and
outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
and the
Antarctic in particular.
Cyberspace may also meet the definition of a global commons.
Definition and usage
"Global commons" is a term typically used to describe international,
supranational, and global resource domains in which common-pool resources are found. In
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
,
common goods are
rivalrous and
non-excludable
In economics, a good, service or resource are broadly assigned two fundamental characteristics; a degree of excludability and a degree of rivalry. Excludability is defined as the degree to which a good, service or resource can be limited to only ...
, constituting one of the four main types of
goods
In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants
and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not ...
. A
common-pool resource, also called a common property resource, is a special case of a common good (or
public good) whose size or characteristics makes it costly, but not impossible, to exclude potential users. Examples include both natural or human-made resource domains (e.g., a "fishing hole" or an irrigation system). Unlike
global public goods, global common-pool resources face problems of congestion, overuse, or degradation because they are subtractable (which makes them
rivalrous).
The term "commons" originates from the term
common land in the British Isles. "Commoners rights" referred to traditional rights held by commoners, such as
mowing
A mower is a person or machine that cuts (mows) grass or other plants that grow on the ground. Usually mowing is distinguished from reaping, which uses similar implements, but is the traditional term for harvesting grain crops, e.g. with reape ...
meadows for
hay or
grazing
In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and ot ...
livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to ani ...
on common land held in the
open field system
The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acr ...
of old
English common law.
Enclosure was the process that ended those traditional rights, converting open fields to
private property. Today, many commons still exist in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
, although their extent is much reduced from the millions of acres that existed until the 17th century. There are still over 7,000 registered commons in England alone.
The term "global commons" is typically used to indicate the earth's shared natural resources, such as the deep
oceans, the
atmosphere,
outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
and the Northern and Southern
polar regions, the
Antarctic in particular.
According to the ''World Conservation Strategy'', a report on conservation published by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in collaboration with
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
and with the support of the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF):
Today, the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
,
World Wide Web and resulting
cyberspace are often referred to as global commons. Other usages sometimes include references to open access information of all kinds, including arts and culture, language and science, though these are more formally referred to as the
common heritage of mankind.
Management of the global commons
The key challenge of the global commons is the design of governance structures and management systems capable of addressing the complexity of multiple public and private interests, subject to often unpredictable changes, ranging from the local to the global level. As with global public goods, management of the global commons requires pluralistic legal entities, usually international and supranational, public and private, structured to match the diversity of interests and the type of resource to be managed, and stringent enough with adequate incentives to ensure compliance. Such management systems are necessary to avoid, at the global level, the classic
tragedy of the commons, in which common resources become
overexploited
Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to replenish. The term ap ...
.
[ Also available her]
an
here.
There are several key differences in management of resources in the global commons from those of the commons, in general. There are obvious differences in scale of both the resources and the number of users at the local versus the global level. Also, there are differences in the shared culture and expectations of resource users; more localized commons users tend to be more homogeneous and global users more heterogeneous. This contributes to differences in the possibility and time it takes for new learning about resource usage to occur at the different levels. Moreover, global resource pools are less likely to be relatively stable and the dynamics are less easily understood. Many of the global commons are non-renewable on human time scales. Thus, resource degradation is more likely to be the result of
unintended consequences that are unforeseen, not immediately observable, or not easily understood. For example, the
carbon dioxide emissions
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China an ...
that drive
climate change continue to do so for at least a millennium after they enter the atmosphere and species extinctions last forever. Importantly, because there are significant differences in the benefits, costs, and interests at the global level, there are significant differences in
externalities
In economics, an externality or external cost is an indirect cost or benefit to an uninvolved third party that arises as an effect of another party's (or parties') activity. Externalities can be considered as unpriced goods involved in either c ...
between more local resource uses and uses of global-level resources.
Several
environmental protocols have been established (see
List of international environmental agreements) as a type of
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
, "an intergovernmental document intended as legally binding with a primary stated purpose of preventing or managing human impacts on natural resources." International environmental protocols came to feature in
environmental governance after trans-boundary
environmental problems became widely perceived in the 1960s.
[Haas, Keohane and Levy (1993). ''Institutions for the Earth: Sources of effective international environmental protection.'' Massachusetts Institute of Technology.] Following the
Stockholm Intergovernmental Conference in 1972, creation of international environmental agreements proliferated.
[Zürn, Michael (1998). "The Rise of International Environmental Politics: A Review of Current Research." ''World Politics'', 50(4):617-649.] Due to the barriers already discussed, environmental protocols are not a panacea for global commons issues. Often, they are slow to produce the desired effects, tend to the
lowest common denominator, and lack monitoring and enforcement. They also take an incremental approach to solutions where
sustainable development
Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The ...
principles suggest that environmental concerns should be mainstream political issues.
The global ocean
The global or
world ocean, as the interconnected system of the
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
's
ocean
The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wor ...
ic (or
marine
Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean.
Marine or marines may refer to:
Ocean
* Maritime (disambiguation)
* Marine art
* Marine biology
* Marine debris
* Marine habitats
* Marine life
* Marine pollution
Military ...
)
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as ...
s that comprise the bulk of the
hydrosphere
The hydrosphere () is the combined mass of water found on, under, and above the surface of a planet, minor planet, or natural satellite. Although Earth's hydrosphere has been around for about 4 billion years, it continues to change in shape. This ...
, is a classic global commons. It is divided into a number of principal oceanic areas that are delimited by the
continents and various oceanographic features. In turn, oceanic waters are interspersed by many smaller seas, gulfs, and bays. Further, most freshwater bodies ultimately empty into the ocean and are derived through the Earth's
water cycle
The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or the hydrological cycle, is a biogeochemical cycle that describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. The mass of water on Earth remains fairly co ...
from ocean waters. The
Law of the Sea is a body of
public international law governing relationships between nations in respect to navigational rights,
mineral rights, and jurisdiction over coastal waters. Maritime law, also called
Admiralty law, is a body of both domestic law governing maritime activities and
private international law
Conflict of laws (also called private international law) is the set of rules or laws a jurisdiction applies to a case, transaction, or other occurrence that has connections to more than one jurisdiction. This body of law deals with three broad ...
governing the relationships between private entities which operate vessels on the oceans. It deals with matters including marine commerce,
marine navigation,
shipping,
sailors, and the transportation of passengers and goods by sea. However, these bodies of law do little to nothing to protect deep oceans from human threats.
In addition to providing significant means of transportation, a large proportion of all
life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...
on Earth exists in its ocean, which contains about 300 times the habitable volume of terrestrial habitats. Specific marine habitats include
coral reef
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of Colony (biology), colonies of coral polyp (zoology), polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, wh ...
s,
kelp forests,
seagrass meadow
A seagrass meadow or seagrass bed is an underwater ecosystem formed by seagrasses. Seagrasses are marine (saltwater) plants found in shallow coastal waters and in the brackish waters of estuaries. Seagrasses are flowering plants with stems an ...
s,
tidepools, muddy, sandy and rocky bottoms, and the open ocean (
pelagic) zone, where solid objects are rare and the surface of the water is the only visible boundary. The organisms studied range from microscopic
phytoplankton and
zooplankton to huge
cetaceans (whales) 30
meters
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pr ...
(98
feet) in length.
At a fundamental level, marine life helps determine the very nature of our planet. Marine life resources provide food (especially
food fish), medicines, and raw materials. It is also becoming understood that the well-being of marine organisms and other organisms are linked in very fundamental ways. The human body of knowledge regarding the relationship between life in the sea and important cycles is rapidly growing, with new discoveries being made nearly every day. These cycles include those of matter (such as the
carbon cycle
The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth. Carbon is the main component of biological compounds as well as a major compon ...
) and of air (such as
Earth's respiration, and movement of energy through
ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syst ...
s including the ocean). Marine organisms contribute significantly to the
oxygen cycle, and are involved in the regulation of the Earth's
climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologi ...
.
Shorelines are in part shaped and protected by marine life, and some marine organisms even help create new land.
The United Nations Environment Programme (
UNEP) has identified several areas of need in managing the global ocean: strengthen national capacities for action, especially in developing countries; improve fisheries management; reinforce cooperation in semi-enclosed and regional seas; strengthen controls over ocean disposal of hazardous and nuclear wastes; and advance the Law of the Sea. Specific problems identified as in need of attention include
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