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Concept
Common heritage of humanity
Summary
Common heritage of humanity (also termed the common heritage of mankind, common heritage of humankind or common heritage principle) is a principle of international law that holds the defined territorial areas and elements of humanity's common heritage (cultural and natural) should be held in trust for future generations and be protected from exploitation by individual nation states or corporations.
In tracing the origins of the common heritage principle, it is important to distinguish its history as a term from its conceptual history. The common heritage principle was developed under different names, including common "heritage", common "property", and common "patrimony" of mankind. These terms have at times described different concepts; for instance, in 1813 the "property of mankind" might mean the arts and sciences, rather than items or areas. By the early 20th century, "common heritage" and similar terms usually referred to areas and the resources in them, while other referents had become known under terms like "cultural heritage of all mankind", such as in the preamble to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.
Conceptually, the common heritage arose in response to the Roman civil law principle of res communis, which described items or areas that anyone could access or use, but none could own. Common heritage instead described areas or items that were owned by humanity as a collective. For example, in his essay Toward Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant claimed that the expansion of hospitality with regard to "use of the right to the earth's surface which belongs to the human race in common" would "finally bring the human race ever closer to a cosmopolitan constitution".
The first known use of Common Heritage of Mankind by a state representative in the United Nations, constituting state practice, was at the First UN Conference on the Law of the Sea by Prince Wan Waithayakon of Thailand in 1958.
Official source
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