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LIBERTY, PROPERTY, ENVIRONMENTALISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2009

Carol M. Rose
Carol M. Rose
Affiliation:
Law, University of Arizona and Yale University
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Abstract

The environment has often been thought to consist of resources that are unowned, and hence subject to the well-known tragedy of the commons. But in recent years, property ideas have been increasingly recruited for environmental protection, in a manner that appears to vindicate the view that property rights evolve along with the needs for resource management. Nevertheless, property regimes have some pitfalls for environmental resources: the relevant parties may not be able to come to agreement; property regimes may be weak or ineffective; they may be aimed at purposes inconsistent with environmental protection; property rights definitions may not work well for environmental resources; modern property regimes may promote monoculture rather than diverse environments. This essay describes these problems and asks to what degree they apply to a new effort to use property rights approaches, namely cap-and-trade programs to control greenhouse gases. It concludes that property rights, while imperfect and something of a retreat from a regime of complete liberty, may offer gains for environmental protection. But success will depend on close attention to the accountability and effectiveness of the governmental institutions necessary to support environmental property regimes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , July 2009 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2009

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References

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59 Penner, The Idea of Property in Law, 75.

60 Zerbe and Anderson, “Culture and Fairness,” 133–35. Zerbe and Anderson call the game a “chicken/hawk” game rather than a “dove/hawk” game, but the game is the same.

61 Two contributions in The Question of the Commons: The Culture and Ecology of Communal Resources, ed. McCay, Bonnie J. and Acheson, James M. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988)Google Scholar sharply question the idea that community-based resource regimes are conservation-oriented in any systematic way: Raymond Hames, “Game Conservation or Efficient Hunting?” 92–107; and James G. Carrier, “Marine Tenure and Conservation in Papua New Guinea,” 142–67. Rose, “Common Property, Regulatory Property, and Environmental Protection,” 233, 248–50, describes some of the weaknesses of traditional community-based regimes with respect to commerce—including communities with some conservationist practices.

62 Rieser, Alison, “Property Rights and Ecosystem Management in U.S. Fisheries: Contracting for the Commons?” Environmental Law Quarterly 24 (1997): 813, 830–32Google Scholar, approvingly describes the allocation of fishing quotas to some Alaskan native communities. See also Tierney, John, “A Tale of Two Fisheries,” New York Times Magazine, August 27, 2000, 38Google Scholar. Among other things, the latter describes the way in which holders of individual tradable fishing quotas in Australia have come together to form a new common-property regime for managing the tuna fishery.