Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2. There is a well-delineated group of users, who are distinct from
persons excluded from resource use.
3.
Multiple included users participate in resource extraction.
4.
Explicit or implicit well-understood rules exist among users regarding
their rights and their duties to one another about resource extraction.
5.
Users share joint, non-exclusive entitlement to the in situ or fugitive
resource prior to its capture or use.
6.
Users compete for the resource, and thereby impose negative exter-
nalities on one another.
7.
A well-delineated group of rights holders exists, which may or may
not coincide with the group of users.
The i rst point indicates that a resource held under common property
must be dei ned either by biological, physical or social conventions, or a
combination of these. At this point I again emphasize the clear distinc-
tion between the resource and common property regime. As was shown
above, common property refers to management institutions that underline
the relation between individuals, which dif er from physical objects. In
contrast, the resource is the physical or intangible asset that a group can
own and manage as common property. Since the institution cannot exist
without the resource that it controls, demarcation of resources, nonethe-
less, must be included in the dei nition of the social institution of common
property (Stevenson, 1991).
The second point specii es that there are two groups in respect to the
resource: included users and excluded persons. The i rst group consists of
an identii able and countable number of users. The second set of persons
do not have the right to use the resource (Stevenson, 1991). This is in con-
trast to open access where everyone is a potential user. Third, more than
two users utilize a common property resource. This clearly distinguishes
common property from private property, where a single person is consid-
ered to be the sole owner. Fourth, the existence of rules (formal/informal)
regarding resource appropriation and exploitation in order to guide the
groups of resource users is the main characteristic that helps distinguish
common property from an open access condition. This includes how rights
are transferred, what i nancial obligation a user has to the group, what
contribution he or she makes and how the rules themselves are changed.
The rules may be formal and explicit or they may be informal and implic-
itly accepted (Stevenson, 1991).
The i fth point provides an essential dif erence between common and
private property. It also highlights the relationship between common prop-
erty and a public good. Unlike common property, in private property the
in situ resource belongs to a particular owner. However, under a common
