Law Commons^™

Federal Constitutions: The Keystone Of Nested Commons Governance, Blake Hudson

Journal Articles

The constitutional structure of a federal system of government can undermine effective natural capital management across scales, from local to global. Federal constitutions that grant subnational governments virtually exclusive regulatory authority over certain types of natural capital appropriation — such as resources appropriated by private forest management or other land-use-related economic development activities — entrench a legally defensible natural capital commons in those jurisdictions. For example, the same constitution that may legally facilitate poor forest-management practices by private landowners in the southeastern United States may complicate international negotiations related to forest management and climate change. Both the local and international …