Commons Emerges as a Fulcrum with United Nations member states and UN organizations

Date:  Wed, 2009-12-16

Commons Emerges as a Fulcrum with United Nations member states and UN organizations

New York – – On December 16, a galvanized group of people took action to reclaim the world’s global commons heritage by meeting in New York to form a commons advocacy and advisory group for the United Nations member states and UN organizations. The group will work to identify and revitalize commons structures around the world, to create new commons structures to meet emerging needs, and to communicate these to United Nations member states and UN organizations. Dr. Monica Sharma from the United Nations Development Program facilitated this inaugural meeting.

A primary focus of the meeting was to organize strategic actions to translate the “commons” from a metaphor into deployed systems that are integrated with the people that use the commons in all its forms.

The group includes James Quilligan, global economic policy adviser; David Bollier, author of Viral Spiral and Imagining a New Politics of the Commons; and representatives of diverse groups such as the All–Win Network, Association of World Citizens, Commons Governance Work Group, Earth Values Caucus, Global Commons Trust, the Henry George School of Philadelphia, Kosmos Journal, M·CAM, Inc., P2P Foundation, Pierre Terre Productions, Share the World’s Resources, Trees Have Rights Too, URSULA, and other concerned citizens.

David Pratt of M·CAM described the already–deployed Global Innovation Commons and Heritable Innovation Trusts at the meeting to give attendees an understanding of functional commons and trust systems related to heritable knowledge, technology, and intellectual property. These shared systems provide a fulcrum and unifying models that UN member states can use to transform their economic models for the benefit of their people. UN organizations can help communicate and support these efforts through the work of their multilateral structures.