Public Trust Doctrine: Indian Contours
INTRODUCTION
Who owns the Earth and its resources? To what extent may the general public claim the pure water, clean air, rich soil, and the myriad services Earth provides to sustain human life?
Across continents and spanning centuries, a dynamic tension continues between those who would circumscribe the Earth’s bounty for private use and those who would carefully allot Earth’s riches to satisfy human needs. Private property—sequestering Earth’s resources for personal, exclusive use—has its zealous advocates, and in many locales its legal status is unimpeachable, and its ideology is unquestioned. But a competing ideology, dating from antiquity[1], holds that some of Earth’s riches should never be sequestered for private use, must be left for the public’s enjoyment, and must be stewarded by those in power. Codified 1,500 years ago during the Roman Empire, legal scholars labeled this the “Public Trust Doctrine.” The Public Trust Doctrine perseveres as a value system and an ethic as its expression in law mutates and evolves. More recently, scholars, activists, and lawyers have begun discussing the rights of people to access and enjoy various essential resources and services the Earth so generously yields.
The Public Trust Doctrine primarily rests on the principle that certain resources like air, sea, waters and the forests have such a great importance to the people as a whole that it would be wholly unjustified to make them a subject of private ownership. The said resources being a gift of nature should be made freely available to everyone irrespective of the status in life. The doctrine enjoins upon the Government to protect the resources for the enjoyment of the general public rather than to permit their use for private ownership or commercial purposes. Three types of restrictions on governmental authority are often thought to be imposed by the public trust: first, the property subject to the trust must not only be used for a public purpose, but it must be
Who owns the Earth and its resources? To what extent may the general public claim the pure water, clean air, rich soil, and the myriad services Earth provides to sustain human life?
Across continents and spanning centuries, a dynamic tension continues between those who would circumscribe the Earth’s bounty for private use and those who would carefully allot Earth’s riches to satisfy human needs. Private property—sequestering Earth’s resources for personal, exclusive use—has its zealous advocates, and in many locales its legal status is unimpeachable, and its ideology is unquestioned. But a competing ideology, dating from antiquity[1], holds that some of Earth’s riches should never be sequestered for private use, must be left for the public’s enjoyment, and must be stewarded by those in power. Codified 1,500 years ago during the Roman Empire, legal scholars labeled this the “Public Trust Doctrine.” The Public Trust Doctrine perseveres as a value system and an ethic as its expression in law mutates and evolves. More recently, scholars, activists, and lawyers have begun discussing the rights of people to access and enjoy various essential resources and services the Earth so generously yields.
The Public Trust Doctrine primarily rests on the principle that certain resources like air, sea, waters and the forests have such a great importance to the people as a whole that it would be wholly unjustified to make them a subject of private ownership. The said resources being a gift of nature should be made freely available to everyone irrespective of the status in life. The doctrine enjoins upon the Government to protect the resources for the enjoyment of the general public rather than to permit their use for private ownership or commercial purposes. Three types of restrictions on governmental authority are often thought to be imposed by the public trust: first, the property subject to the trust must not only be used for a public purpose, but it must be