Rethinking Commons and Property in the Light of the Climate Crisis

In this innovative study, Verena Wolf reframes the failure to mitigate the climate crisis as a failure of private property. The climate crisis unfolds as a twin crisis of ecological degradation and global inequality. To address this crisis, international law has framed the atmosphere as a global commons, defined as a shared resource domain that is disproportionately overused and affects those first and hardest who have contributed the least to it. Taking the legal framing as a starting point, Verena Wolf analyzes how the overuse of the commons is regulated, focusing on the role of private property rights. In mainstream economic approaches, private property rights are the main tool to prevent the depletion of the commons and their shared resources. But does privatizing the commons resolve either ecological or social crises? Or should we rethink both commons theory and property theory?