Capturing externalities
One of the structural issues that currently make achieving environmental agreements a "political impossibility" is the spread of environmental costs (debits) and benefits (credits) across the planet – known also as positive or negative environmental externalities and which are identified in economics as "market failures".
Our proposal to recognize the climate and oceanic systems as "Natural Intangible Heritage of Humanity", could be capable of overcoming the current "black hole" that these systems pose on the economy and legal systems. The aim is to internalize, into this common heritage, those factors that are vital to our existence, but which are still considered "externalities".
In order for this common heritage of humanity to be more than a well-intentioned proclamation, it is necessary to reach an agreement on a measuring system, to compare and value these externalities that spread throughout all humanity. But a legal recognition will also be a necessity while searching an agreement on a common metric and value.
Global Legal Support
Resolution 43/53 of 6/12/1988-AG/ONU on climate change states, in the first paragraph of the preamble, that the Earth's climate change and its adverse effects are a common concern of mankind. The choice for a legal recognition of a problem as a Common Concern of Mankind presents both the identification of the problem and an appeal to its resolution. But it is still not an instrument capable of implementing solutions. Moving forward requires the indeterminate and generic concept of "common concern of mankind" to be narrowed into something more tangible, which does not just present a "concern" in the the spirit of human beings. Currently, we live in a "legal cloud" that wanders between diffuse and indeterminate concepts (Biosphere - Common Heritage of Humanity, Global Commons, Common Heritage of All Life, etc.), where elements that constitute state sovereignty blend with the interests of Humanity. In this sense, it is urgent to evolve towards objects capable of settling legal rights and obligations relating to Humanity's common interests and concerns.
The common dependence on the same global natural systems, confronts us with the problem of overlapping interests and scales. In fact, this overlap stems from the global-scale effects of activities that have been developed until now within sovereign borders, without knowledge of its full range of implications. Building a comprehensive legal support based on the concept of intangible global natural system can provide not only initiate the evolution required to address these "concerns", but also forms the basis for organizing strong interdependencies. The recognition of a Heritage of Mankind should allow the measurement and accounting of the costs and benefits from each country on the global natural systems. This has become an urgent and prior task.
