This chapter focuses on the process of designation of MCZs in English waters at the basis of MCZs designation. The designation of MCZs is a very interesting case to study attempts at democratising conservation regulation as it has contemplated extensive participation. Departing from the technocratic and purely science-based approach to site selection typical of domestic and European nature conservation law, socio-economic considerations and participatory techniques have been key elements of the designation process of MCZs in England from the start. However, a critical reading of the participatory approach reveals certain weaknesses, mainly to do with the choice of an aggregative rather than a deliberative model of democracy. Advocating for a relational ontology and epistemology, the chapter ends with a call for bringing forth new, ‘thicker’ models of participation that are more attentive to multiple forms of communication and identities and more conducive to commoning practices.

The chapter starts by highlighting the role of international legal and policy drivers on domestic conservation law. In a post-Brexit world, the role of international law is bound to become even more significant, hence the fact that the UK is a party to many multilateral environmental agreements setting out conservation obligations is significant. The chapter then moves to the legal regime for the protection of marine biodiversity in England, starting with an introduction into the regulatory bodies and then focusing on the two main legal instruments for the designation and management of marine protected areas: the Habitats Regulations 2017, as amended and the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, offering a comparison between the two in terms of designation and management provisions. Finally, a note on key implementation challenges is offered. The legal map presented is framed using the conceptual categories of new commons and enclosures defined in Chapter 1.

Succession in Russia was a matter of paternal designation, a practice not a written law, until 1722. The 1722 law had no relationship to “absolutism,” but it did frame succession in a Western context. Succession was in actuality contentious throughout the eighteenth century, until Tsar Paul proclaimed primogeniture as the law in 1797.

The problem of succession to the throne in Russia. Historians have assumed primogeniture, but that was not the case. The practice was rather paternal designation. Succession also involved marriage politics and the education of the heir. That education evolved along with Russian culture, from traditionally Orthodox to entirely Western after 1700.

In the medieval and early modern West succession to the throne of monarchs proceeded by primogeniture, with some explicit legal basis. In medieval Russia political theory as such did not exist. Monarchy was understood in the context of Orthodoxy. The main form of discussion was in texts that provided images of good and bad monarchs, primarily chronicles, world histories, and the lives of saintly princes. In Russia succession was frequently collateral, a system that caused many disputes until the middle of the fifteenth century.

The Moscow principality was the scene of an intense battle over succession in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. After its end Prince Vasilii II designated his son Ivan as his successor. Ivan III’s two marriages created a problem. Ivan Ivanovich, his son by the first wife, died, leaving a son Dmitrii as a possible heir. Ivan III’s second wife, Sophia Palaiologina, had a son, Vasilii. In 1497 Ivan chose Dmitrii as his heir, but soon changed his mind. The designated heir was his son Vasilii. Vasilii in turn had no children by his first wife, Solomoniia Saburova, so he sent her to a convent and married the Lithuanian princess Elena Glinskaia. During this time the ceremonial oaths of loyalty came to include not just the Grand Prince but his wife and family.