One of the main goals of the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, consists of reaching a consensus on the steps that will follow after the conference. In anticipation of the event's conclusion, we already wish to start contributing to the post-Rio agenda by renewing debate on the ‘political impossibility’ of global collective action, and to further strengthen the international political commitment towards building a project for the future of mankind.Elinor Ostrom debunks in her work the fatalistic notion associated to community management, i.e. the Tragedy of the Commons, and opens the doors for a possible 'happy end' that results from collective action. However, this approach recognizes the need for “developing a new theory that explains phenomena that do not fit into the dichotomous world of ‘market’ and ‘state’.” Such phenomena include the climate system, which through its properties, is impossible to divide or appropriate individually. So out of this context the legal concept of the condominium is advanced. It offers a third path of integrated management of different kinds of property that interfere with the common good. It is a form of hybrid property, which has been used with proven success in buildings, rural communities and common resource management between contiguous countries. By separating the different responsibilities and competencies of management, harmony is achieved between usually opposite interests and interfering types of property. Based upon this conceptual framework that organizes potentially conflicting interests over a common good, a task was initiated in 2007 to scale up this model on a global level..
Upon recognizing that the climate system has the dimension of a heritage, implicitly the responsibility is adopted to transmit a climate that sustains life of this generation to future ones. This lead Sobrino to propose the application of the fundamental principles of Common Heritage of Mankind to the climatic system itself, thus freeing it from any State or private appropriations, making it accessible to all, and managed institutionally and internationally. Accepting this dimension as a characteristic of the natural global systems, suggests an evolution beyond the current perception of the climate system as a “Common Concern of Mankind”. Its intangible and functional character may further advance the idea of a common heritage towards a new category: Intangible Natural Heritage of Mankind.
If the challenge of the EcoBalance Conference was to combine several tools to operate an accountancy rooted within a global juridic support, this second conference aspires to create the structural conditions to delineate competencies that propel institutional innovation and the constitution of a World Environmental Organization. This Organization will have to secure, through EcoBalance management, a global governance of the common natural systems that no State can secure on its own and on wich we all depend.
PROVISIONAL PROGRAM
OCTOBER 17 | MORNING
1st PLENARY
An Intangible Natural Heritage of MankindCould the global natural systems constitute a common intangible heritage?
Preliminary questions for discussion:
- Could the recognition of an ecological heritage common to all humanity, facilitate an evolution from the simple declaration of ‘concern’ and ‘interest’ of the Common Concern of Mankind, into a legal object capable of putting into practice the rights and duties related to common concerns and interest?
- The Concern of Mankind status requires a definition of its outlines. Can the delimitation of a heritage of humanity be a step forward in soothing the conflict between States and the interests of all humanity?
- Although the totality and complexity of interactions between the global systems is still unknown to us and hard to define or delineate, can we state that nature, functional, intangible, post-material or immaterial, is the essence of life’s dynamics and, as such, vital to humanity?
- Since these are the systems that unite us all, are they not the true Heritage of Humanity?
OCTOBER 17 | AFTERNOON
2nd PLENARY
Sovereignty and the Global Natural Systems
Can we maintain sovereignties without restructuring the interdependencies?
Preliminary questions for discussion:
- Can the recognition of Nature as a global and intangible entity, answer the need for global juridic support?
- Will the constitution of this new juridic object meet the aspirations of the current International Law?
- Is it an appropriate tool to overcome the problem of superposition between the interests of each State inside its own territory and the interests of all humanity?
- Can the recognition of this global juridic support become a tool capable of answering to the global and intergenerational dimensions of the climatic and oceanic systems, without clashing with the essence of the sovereignty of the States?
- The absence of a structural framework of the profound ecological interdependencies, results in the emptying of the sovereignty when faced with environmental catastrophes. Does the organization of interdependencies equal the best way to defend sovereignty?
OCTOBER 18 | MORNING
3rd PLENARY
The institutionalisation of the Settlement of EcoBalances
World Environmental Organization and the pursuit of the common interest.
Preliminary questions for discussion:
- Is the environment a product that can be traded or an asset to be maintained for ‘collective fruition’?
- Will the settlement of accounts, with a common metric and common value, be the best way to organize the ‘collective fruition’ of the global functioning of the planet's natural systems?
- Is the creation of an institution where all positive and negative contributions can be found, an essential condition to reach an agreement where the interests of all may be secured?
- With the settlement of accounts between all, will it be possible to generate income to finance the managing institution and the development of projects of common interest?
OCTOBER 18 | AFTERNOON
4th PLENARY
The Earth Condominium – Building a Project for MankindIs it possible to conciliate collective and individual interests?
Preliminary questions for discussion:
- Can the legal institution of the condominium serve as a basic conceptual model for the third path of integrated management of the current conflicting interests over the ‘common home’ of humanity?
- Is the integrated usage of the various current measuring and valuing tools, a valid exercise within the task of organising our global neighbourhood?
