A Healthy Respect: Science, the Environment, Political Reality

• Author: G. Tracy Mehan III
• Pages: 120-122

120 Best of the Books: Ref‌lections on Recent Literature

A Healthy Respect:

Science, the Environment,

Political Reality

By G. Tracy Mehan III

Negotiating Envir onment and Science : An Insider’s View of

International Ag reements, From Dr iftnets to the Sp ace Station, by

Richard J. Smith. Resources for the Fu ture. 167 pages.

From the May/ June 2010 issue of The Environment al Forum.

Lunching with a former colleague, I men-

tioned that I was going to teach a course

on international environmental law.

My friend’s quick response: “Is there any?”

Good question. With marine sheries

crashing, mercury pollution cycling around

the globe, and a variet y of mega-fauna going

extinct in all t he seven sea s, one could be for-

given for taking such a dim view. e g lobal

commons is threatened by the lack of settled,

enforceable norms in terms of stewardship or

sustainable development or exploitation.

e traditional textbook responses to the

Tragedy of the Commons have been either

privatization or regulation of t he resources,

although t he research of Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University has revealed

that there are actually a plethora of collaborative approaches to resources

management already in play around the world.

Ostrom, who earlier this yea r became the rst woman to win the Nobel

prize in economics, has demonstrated that u ser-managed  sh stock s, pas-

tures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, in many countries and cultures,

often work out better than standard theories predict. Resource users are able

to establish norms of behavior, sophisticated rules for decision-making, and

enforcement mechanisms.