Common heritage of mankind - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Common heritage of mankind (also termed the common heritage of humanity, common heritage of humankind or common heritage principle) is a principle of international law

International law

Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...

which holds that defined territorial areas and elements of humanity's common heritage (cultural and natural) should be held in trust for future generations and be protected from exploitation by individual nation states or corporations.

Origins

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

in his essay Toward Perpetual Peace claimed that the expansion of hospitality with regard to "use of the right to the earth's surface which belongs to the human race in common" would "finally bring the human race ever closer to a cosmopolitan constitution". The concept of Common Heritage of Mankind, however, was first specifically enunciated in international law

International law

in the Outer Space Treaty

Outer Space Treaty

The Outer Space Treaty, formally the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, is a treaty that forms the basis of international space law...

of 1967. Some initial provisions of that treaty state:

The concept of common heritage of mankind also appears in the Moon Treaty

Moon Treaty

The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, better known as the Moon Treaty or Moon Agreement, is an international treaty that turns jurisdiction of all celestial bodies over to the international community...

, Article 11 declaring that “[t]he Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind”. The Antarctic Treaty, though it does not mention the principle expressly, states in its preamble that its primary purpose is to ensure “in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord”.

The concept of 'Mankind' is also mentioned in other outer space treaties. 'Mankind' as a subject in international law also appears in the Preamble of the United Nations Charter

United Nations Charter

The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the international organization called the United Nations. It was signed at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, United States, on 26 June 1945, by 50 of the 51 original member countries...

, the Preamble of the North Atlantic Treaty

North Atlantic Treaty

The North Atlantic Treaty is the treaty that brought NATO into existence, signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949. The original twelve nations that signed it and thus became the founding members of NATO were:...

(1949) the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968).

Common Heritage in the Law of the Sea Treaty

In 1970, United Nations General Assembly

United Nations General Assembly

For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...

Resolution 2749, the Declaration of Principles Governing the Seabed and Ocean Floor, was adopted by 108 states (including the United States) and stated that the deep seabed should be preserved for peaceful purposes and is the “Common Heritage of Mankind.”

In 1982, the Common Heritage of Mankind concept was stated to relate to “the seabed and ocean floor and subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction” under Article 136 of the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

Law of the Sea Treaty (UNCLOS).

Payoyo argues that the common heritage of humanity principle in Part XI of the Law of the Sea Treaty should favour developing states (who were the voice of conscience

Conscience

Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...

in establishing it), and not merely in some transient 'affirmative action' manner. He claims, however, that the 1994 Implementation Agreement facilitated control by industrialised countries of the International Seabed Authority

International Seabed Authority

The International Seabed Authority is an intergovernmental body based in Kingston, Jamaica, that was established to organize and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed area beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, an area underlying most of the world’s oceans...

(ISA), allowing access by the private sector to the deep sea bed and inhibiting constructive dialogue on sustainable development.

Core conceptual components

Arvid Pardo

Arvid Pardo was a Maltese diplomat, scholar, and university professor. He is known as the "Father of the Law of the Sea Conference"....

one of the founders of the common heritage of humanity concept under international law has claimed that it challenges the "structural relationship between rich and poor countries" and amounts to a "revolution not merely in the law of the sea, but also in international relations". One of the main architects of the principle under international space law has claimed that it is "the most important legal principle achieved by man throughout thousands of years during which law has existed as the regulating element of social exchange". This praise relates to the fact that international law

International law

in the common heritage of humanity principle is seeking to protect, respect and fulfill the interests of human beings independently of any politically motivated sovereign state

Sovereign state

A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...

; the concept covering all humans wherever they are living, as well as future generations.

Frakes has identified five core components of the Common Heritage of Humanity concept. First, there can be no private or public appropriation; no one legally owns common heritage spaces. Second, representatives from all nations must manage resources contained in such a territorial or conceptual area on behalf of all since a commons area is considered to belong to everyone; this practically necessitating a special agency to coordinate shared management. Third, all nations must actively share with each other the benefits acquired from exploitation of the resources from the commons heritage region, this requiring restraint on the profit-making activities of private corporate entities; this linking the concept to that of global public good

Global public good

A global public good is a good that has the three following properties :* It is non-rivalrous. Consumption of this good by anyone does not reduce the quantity available to other agents.* It is non-excludable...

. Fourth, there can be no weaponry or military installations established in territorial commons areas. Fifth, the commons should be preserved for the benefit of future generations, and to avoid a “tragedy of the commons

Tragedy of the commons

The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...

” scenario. Academic claims have been made that where the principle requires the establishment of an international resource management regime, prior to establishment of such a regime a moratorium

Moratorium (law)

A moratorium is a delay or suspension of an activity or a law. In a legal context, it may refer to the temporary suspension of a law to allow a legal challenge to be carried out....

on resource exploitation should be enforced. Such a position does not appear to have been supported by most states during the respective drafting negotiations.

World Heritage Conventions

A similar principle of international law holds that the world's cultural

Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...

and natural heritage (as nominated for listing by nation states) must be protected by states parties to the UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

World Heritage Convention.

A case study in the use of these provisions was provided by the Franklin Dam

Franklin Dam

The Franklin Dam or Gordon-below-Franklin Dam project was a proposed dam on the Gordon River in Tasmania, Australia, that was never constructed. The movement that eventually led to the project's cancellation became one of most significant environmental campaigns in Australian history.The dam was...

non-violent protest campaign against the construction of a dam of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

's last wild river; they being held by the Australian High Court to provide a valid basis for legislation protecting the Franklin River

Franklin River

The Franklin River lies in the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park at the mid northern area of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Its source is situated at the western edge of the Central Highlands and it continues west towards the West Coast of Tasmania...

. Justice Lionel Murphy wrote in that case (Commonwealth v Tasmania

Commonwealth v Tasmania

Commonwealth v Tasmania 158 CLR 1, was a significant Australian court case, decided in the High Court of Australia on 1 July 1983. The case was a landmark decision in Australian constitutional law, and was a significant moment in the history of conservation in Australia...

) about the Common Heritage of Humanity principle: "The preservation of the world's heritage must not be looked at in isolation but as part of the co-operation between nations which is calculated to achieve intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind and so reinforce the bonds between people which promote peace and displace those of narrow nationalism and alienation which promote war...[t]he encouragement of people to think internationally, to regard the culture of their own country as part of world culture, to conceive a physical, spiritual and intellectual world heritage, is important in the endeavour to avoid the destruction of humanity."

UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights

The UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights declares in Article 1 that: "The human genome

Human genome

The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens, which is stored on 23 chromosome pairs plus the small mitochondrial DNA. 22 of the 23 chromosomes are autosomal chromosome pairs, while the remaining pair is sex-determining...

underlies the fundamental unity of all members of the human family, as well as the recognition of their inherent dignity and diversity. In a symbolic sense, it is the heritage of humanity." Article 4 states: "The human genome in its natural state shall not give rise to financial gains." Such Declarations do not create binding obligations under international law

International law

(unless over time there is sufficient opinio juris and state practise to make them part of international customary law) so the impact of such principles of commercialisation of the human genome

Human genome

will be problematic. Whether the principle prohibits the patenting of the human genome

Human genome

is contested by the corporate sector.

UNESCO Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Towards Future Generations

Proclaimed on November 12, 1997, the UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Towards Future Generations is an international agreement (potentially part of international customary law) which includes provisions related to the common heritage of mankind.

Potential applications

It was argued at the World Summit on the Information Society

World Summit on the Information Society

The World Summit on the Information Society was a pair of United Nations-sponsored conferences about information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis...

and has been advocated by academics that global communication between individuals over the internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

should be regarded as part of the Common Heritage of Mankind. From a spiritual or natural law

Natural law

Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...

perspective, it has been argued that for world peace

World peace

World Peace is an ideal of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations and/or people. World peace is an idea of planetary non-violence by which nations willingly cooperate, either voluntarily or by virtue of a system of governance that prevents warfare. The term is sometimes used to...

to be achieved, laws and government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

policies should create the social preconditions whereby conscience

Conscience

Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...

, properly understood, can be delinked from (often destructive) fundamentalist religious ideologies, and associated with a universal consciousness

Universal Consciousness

Universal Consciousness was the fifth solo album released by Alice Coltrane in 1972 on Impulse! Records. It was re-released on CD in 2002.-Reception:...

, access to which is the Common Heritage of Humanity. Such thinking with associated implications about how a sustainable world in future should be regulated is common to members of the Global Ecovillage Network

Global Ecovillage Network

The Global Ecovillage Network is a global association of people and communities dedicated to living "sustainable plus" lives by restoring the land and adding more to the environment than is taken...

. Equatorial countries have proposed that the geostationary orbit

Geostationary orbit

A geostationary orbit is a geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator , with a period equal to the Earth's rotational period and an orbital eccentricity of approximately zero. An object in a geostationary orbit appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers...

over the high seas should be declared the common heritage of mankind. It has been argued that a World government

World government

World government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...

would manage common heritage areas according to principles of planetary democracy. The international law concept of common heritage of humanity has also been linked with cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. This is contrasted with communitarian and particularistic theories, especially the ideas of patriotism and nationalism...

. Common heritage of humanity as a concept of international law is supported by many of the principles in the Earth Charter

Earth Charter

The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles considered useful by its supporters for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century...

civil society Initiative

Controversies about the principle

Kemal Baslar has stated that the Common Heritage of Mankind principle "is a philosophical idea that questions the regimes of globally important resources regardless of their situation, and requires major changes in the world to apply its provisions. In other words, the application and enforcement of the common heritage of mankind require a critical reexamination of many well-established principles and doctrines of classical international law

International law

, such as acquisition of territory, consent-based sources of international law, sovereignty

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...

, equality

Equality before the law

Equality before the law or equality under the law or legal egalitarianism is the principle under which each individual is subject to the same laws....

, resource allocation

Resource allocation

Resource allocation is used to assign the available resources in an economic way. It is part of resource management. In project management, resource allocation is the scheduling of activities and the resources required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resource...

and international personality."

The common heritage of humanity principle in international law has been viewed as one solution to the tragedy of the commons

Tragedy of the commons

dilemma described in an influential article by that name written by Garrett Hardin

Garrett Hardin

Garrett James Hardin was an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of overpopulation and whose concept of the tragedy of the commons brought attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment"...

in the journal Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

in 1968. The article critically analyzes a dilemma in which multiple individuals, acting independently after rationally consulting self-interest, ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when each acknowledges that outcome is not in anyone's long term interest. Hardin's conclusion that commons areas are practicably achievable only in conditions of low population density and so their continuance requires state restriction on the freedom to breed, created controversy particularly through his deprecation of the role of conscience

Conscience

Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...

in achieving justice and equality in society. Hardin's views have been noted by scholars and policy-makers supporting privatization of common spaces and suggesting economic rationalism

Economic rationalism

Economic rationalism is an Australian term in discussion of microeconomic policy, applicable to the economic policy of many governments around the world, in particular during the 1980s and 1990s....

on such social and ecosystems .

The extent to which the Common Heritage of Mankind principle does or should control the activities of private multinational corporations as well as nation states, particularly with regard to mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

activities, remains controversial. Developing nations often see the principle as a means of protecting critical resources from exploitation by developed nations and their corporations. As world oil, coal and mineral reserves are depleted there will be increasing pressure to commercially exploit Common Heritage of Mankind areas. It appears at the present time that exploration of outer space is unlikely to initially proceed under the jurisdiction of a supranational organization, but rather through the coordination of national space programs. It has been argued that photosynthesis in its natural or artificial forms should be considered the common heritage of humanity.

In early November 2009, a senior Chinese Air Force

Chinese Air Force

The phrase Chinese Air Force may refer to one of two modern bodies; a third historical unit can also be referred to as a part:*Republic of China Air Force: The air force of China from 1920 to 1949, operating from Taiwan only post-1949....

commander Xu Qiliang

Xu Qiliang

Xu Qiliang is a general in the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China, a member of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China , and the current commander of the People's Liberation Army Air Force.Born in Linqu County, Shandong Province, he is the son of Xu...

called the militarization of Outer Space

Outer space

Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos....

a "historical inevitability", marking an apparent shift in Beijing's opposition to weaponizing outer space and challenging core components of the common heritage of humanity status of Outer Space.

Origins

Common Heritage in the Law of the Sea Treaty

Core conceptual components

World Heritage Conventions

UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights

UNESCO Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Towards Future Generations

Potential applications

Controversies about the principle

See also