From Philip Greenspun’s Weblog ¹ comes a link to Orion magazine (never heard of it) talking about the the Public Trust Doctrine. The article starts with the story of a huge ditch that diverts water for commercial purposes. This is not allowed according to the public trust doctrine:
The court ordered the cancellation of all permits the commission had issued to developers for water withdrawals, citing a little-known legal principle called the Public Trust Doctrine, which says that common resources such as water are to be held in trust by the state for the use and enjoyment of the general public, rather than private interests. ²
It seems that this doctrine is really old and dates back to roman times:
It was codified back in 528 AD, when the Roman Emperor Justinian decided to gather and condense all the unpublished rules and edicts handed down by his predecessors into a unified, coherent code of imperial law. To the task he appointed a commission of ten legal experts, who delivered the Codex Justinianus in 529 and a year later its attendant textbook, known as the Institutes of Justinian, to which the emperor added a few words of his own. Among them were the following: “By the law of nature these things are common to all mankind, the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea.”
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I wonder what this WeblogRoadmap is supposed to be.
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Working, then relaxing and sleeping the *Alte Bäckeranlage*. And tonight: Salsa in *Le Bal*.
I took some pictures, but have to upload them first. This is taking time... Grrr.