Landscape: From common good to human right
Date
2017
Type:
Artículo
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43
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Authors
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Journal Title
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Publisher
International Association for the Study of the Commons
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Abstract
This paper analyses how the current concept of landscape, which overcomes
a scenery-based characterisation and a confinement to classical aesthetics
and art, relates to the notions of the common good, commons and commons pool
resources (CPRs). I consider landscape as a complex process in which human
beings (with their history and culture) and their environment are mutually defined.
On the basis of this approach to landscape studies, and by considering contemporary
documents on landscape (i.e. the European Landscape Convention, the Latin
American Initiative for Landscape and the UNESCO Florence Declaration) I analyse
the similarity between the notion of landscape and the concepts of common
good, the management of commons and the commons pool resources institutions.
Through theoretical research supported by practical examples (e.g. community
gardens) I argue that landscape can be defined as a common good, can include the
commons, and the collective management of lands and common pool resources
institutions. The paper relies on an excursus through the theories and legal documents,
with a specific regard to the theoretical foundations of these different
notions. The analysis carried out in the paper leads, in the end, to the possibility
of defining the ‘right to landscape’. Even if the concept is new in the literature,
and a right to landscape is not recognised as a right per se, it is already implicated
and studied in many international rights laws. Three approaches to landscape as a
right have been distinguished: the right to landscape as a perceived landscape (a
collective right), as a right to the environment and a right for addressing human
rights. I integrated these approaches by arguing that landscape is a domain in relation
to which human rights can be claimed, and that landscape can be considered
as a right to which human beings are entitled.
Description
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Citation
Menatti, L. (2017). Landscape: from common good to human right. International Journal of the Commons, 11(2), 641–683
Keywords
Common good, common pool resources, commons, landscape, landscape perception, right to landscape