New Discourses on Ocean Governance: Understanding Property Rights and the Public Trust

66 p.I begin with a look at how societal views and laws regarding ocean space have changed from the sixteenth century to the present. New ocean discourses are likely to lead to new systems of ocean governance to deal with new uses and conflicts arising over ocean space. Section II provides an overview of property rights. Section III explains the distinction between imperium and dominium in international law, a distinction central to understanding the seas as common property (in contrast to public or private property). Section IV brings international law to bear from the Geneva Conventions of 1958, signing of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982 (1982 Convention), and subsequent treatment of ocean space under international law. Section V traces the evolution of property rights and the changing structure of sovereignty over the seas in U.S. court cases and statutes including the nineteenth century battles over tidelands, the 1945 Truman Proclamation unilaterally claiming an extension of U.S. jurisdiction and control over the continental shelf, and a series of cases from the 1940s to the present dealing with federalstate conflicts over the oil and gas resources of the continental shelf. This section considers the nature of federal and state authority over the seabed and subsurface, and explores in-depth the assertions of property rights made by parties to these cases and rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Section VI discusses protection of common property through contract law and the public trust doctrine. The final section offers recommendations for ocean governance that reflect twenty-first century discourses on the importance of marine ecosystems and ways to reduce and manage conflicts as existing and new uses compete for ocean space

Research planning in the face of change: the human role in reindeer/caribou systems

Reindeer/caribou (Rangifer tarandus) constitute a biological resource of vital importance to the physical and cultural survival of Arctic residents since time immemorial. Recent and possible future economic, social and ecological changes raise concern for sustainability of these resources and the well-being of those who depend on them. In February 1999 eighty scientists, reindeer/caribou users and resource managers gathered in Rovaniemi, Finland, for an interdisciplinary workshop to develop a circumpolar research plan that addressed the sustainability of humanreindeer/caribou systems. Small working groups addressed six themes: hunting systems, herding systems, rengeland/habitat protection, minimizing industrial impacts, maintaining the strength of indigenous cultures, and responding to global change. The resulting Research Plan cells for interdisciplinary comparative studies, advancement of tools for assessing cumulative effects, implementation of regional and a circumpolar monitoring and assessment programmes, and cultural studies on the transmission of knowledge. Cross-cutting directives for future research include:• improving humans’ability to anticipate and respond to change;• understanding better the dynamics of human-reindeer/caribou systems;• developing research methods that are both more instructive and less intrusive;• facilitating open communication among groups with interests in reindeer/caribou resources;• organizing researchers into a strong, coordinated network;• re-framing the conventional research paradigm to be more inclusive of differing cultural perspectives.Three follow-up initiatives are proposed: 1) development of a web-based resource on the human role in reindeer/caribou systems (www.rangifer.net); establishment of a Profile of Herds database to support comparative research; and 3) convening of working groups to address specific problems identified by workshop participants

Mapping Institutional Linkages in European Air Pollution Politics

The growing literature about linkages between international institutions remains littered with proposed taxonomies. Most of these taxonomies are conceptual, rather than empirically driven, remaining too vague to offer guidance for empirical research regarding linkages as possible avenues of influence across international institutions. This article argues that institutional linkages are potential causal pathways by which policy making and implementation are influenced. It supplements concepts of structural governance linkages, which are common in the existing literature, with attention to agent-oriented actor linkages. The article offers a typology of governance and actor linkages that can be operationalized in empirical research. It discusses governance and actor linkages between policy making within the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution and the European Union. The paper argues that research on international environmental cooperation would benefit from greater empirical attention to linkages in a context of a multitude of connected governance and actor linkages. Copyright (c) 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.