Earth Trusteeship Initiative

The Earth Trusteeship initiative is established to highlight current examples of trusteeship arrangements and mechanisms at local, national and international levels, and to strengthen and expand earth trusteeship in order to better manage natural environments and ecosystems.

Earth Trusteeship is a legal and political framework in which natural entities are not owned by anyone, but which are managed under a ‘trusteeship’ to ensure their sustainability.

This could include rivers, lakes, mountains, forests, national parks, national common areas or trans-national regions such as the global commons, which includes the oceans, atmosphere, outer space, seabed and Antarctica.

Definitions of ownership, determined by preferential legal personhood of corporations, and territorial sovereignty as an exclusive privilege of nation-states, are based on historic paradigms. Legal frameworks no longer match the Earth System Governance urgently needed to effectively address climate emergency, our existential biodiversity crisis, and the almost irreversible pollution and exhaustion, desensitization, of Nature.
Reflections on Earth Trusteeship: Mother Earth and a new 21st Century governance paradigm
Published by Innovation Network International Books, Thailand, 2023

Hague Principles

The Hague Principles for a Universal Declaration on Responsibilities for Human Rights and Earth Trusteeship were adopted and released on December 10, 2018 at a conference of environmental organizations and legal experts. The principles express deep concern about current trends of environmental destruction, introduce the concept of earth trusteeship and outline elements for a universal declaration on Erath Trusteeship for adoption by the United Nations.

Trusteeship of the Global Commons

The Earth Trusteeship campaign promotes the proposal of the UN Secretary-General that the UN Trusteeship Council to be re-purposed to provide better governance of the global commons, i.e. the oceans, atmosphere, outer space and seabed. The proposal is gaining strong support from civil society in the run-up to the 2024 UN Summit of the Future.

Earth Trusteeship Working Group

The Earth Trusteeship campaign is coordinated by a working group established by the Right Livelihood College of Bangkok, World Future Council and the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law. Participating organizations include World Federalist Movement – Institute for Global Policy, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Common Home of Humanity, Normandy Chair for Peace, International Network of Engaged Buddhists and Earth Charter International.

Earth Trusteeship requires the present generation to hold the Earth in trust for future generations. As a governance concept, Earth Trusteeship is guided by the fulfillment of ownership responsibilities for the benefit of others, i.e. the wellbeing of future generations. Earth Trusteeship aligns itself with the principle of inter-generational equity, which calls for a minimum level of equality between generations. In other words, each generation is entitled to inherit a planet at least as good as that of previous generations.
Reflections on Earth Trusteeship: Mother Earth and a new 21st Century governance paradigm
Published by Innovation Network International Books, Thailand, 2023.

Reflections on Earth Trusteeship

In April 2023, the campaign published Reflections on Earth Trusteeship: Mother Earth and a new 21st Century governance paradigm, a collection of essays on Earth Trusteeship.

In this 416-page illustrated volume, a diverse outline unfolds, tracing Earth Trusteeship’s roots, the discourse on its present status, and its promising potential as “the first principle of modern environmental law”. Reflections on Earth Trusteeship explores ways new developments in environmental law as well as public awareness can be charted. The emerging commons movement may play a vital role in the realization of a new governance paradigm.