THE COMMON HERITAGE

We all have some notion of the Common Heritage of Mankind, the air we breathe, the natural energy of the earth, the natural resources of land and sea, our gene pool, which makes a single but diverse family out of the family of humans. The heritage inclusdes many other attributes of nature which are or ought to be shared universally and equitably throughout the earth.


Was it the great sixteenth/seventeenth century legal scholar Grotius who first defined the Common Heritage as it relates to the sea? In his words:
"God himself says 'speaking through the voice of nature' inasmuch as it is not His will to have Nature supply every place with all the necessaries of life, He ordains that some nations excel in one art and others in another. ... So by the decree of divine justice it was brought about that one people should supply the needs of another.

Those therefore who deny this law, destroy this most praiseworthy bond of human fellowship, remove the opportunities for doing mutual service, in a word do violence to Nature herself. For do not the oceans, navigable in every direction, with which God has encompassed all the earth, and the regular and the occasional winds which blow now from one quarter and now from another offer sufficient proof that Nature has given to all peoples a right of access to all other peoples."

Nearly four hundred years later Ambassador Pardo of Malta redefined the oceanic common heritage, going beyond the freedom of the seas to include the resources of the ocean outside the areas of national jurisdiction. This concept was embodied in the now ratified Law of the Sea Treaty. Here the United Nations appointed themselves Trustee for the Common Heritage but limited that trusteeship to the seabed outside a 200 mile exclusive economic zone. The resources of this vast zone were reserved for the coastal states. Does not the Common Heritage have rights and duties within these zones of national jurisdiction? Does the failure of the United Nations to define the nature of jurisdiction and trusteeship outside of the SeaBed foreclose the existence of such rights, duties, jurisdictions and trusteeships. The lawyers will tell you (and we are one) that, absent specific words of denial, silence with respect to a legal regime does not mean that such a regime does not exist. This principle is the very basis for customary and common law. Who then shall be the trustees for humanity within this vast new, but inchoate, ocean jurisdiction? At present there is none except for those volunteer non-governmental organizations and individuals who feel an obligation to rectify the sins of omission and commission of the nation states. The Common Heritage Corp. is one such entity and its mission is simple - to manage whenever and wherever it can, those environmentally sustainable innovations in ocean technology which will redound to the benefit of the world community of human beings.