|
Abstract:
|
"The Commons represents a topical subject, hugely important for the future: in these last two decades it has become an object of interest for all modern social sciences, and for the public opinion. The current international debate has fallen on a fertile ground also in Italy. In Italy this debate has focused both on the legal definition of the commons and on their historical experience through the centuries. The present study aims at drawing the attention on the specific reality of the Italian system of common lands, underlying the awareness and the importance of these resources, that still represent one third of the national territory. The social and cultural context, the environmental issue, a system of communities based on solidarity and cooperation are the heterogeneous elements of collective utilization of these natural resources: woods, pastures, forests. So, what does this concept really mean and represent today? How and why did the Italian Legislator decide to unify under a single legal framework – the law n. 1766/1927 and the Regio Decreto n. 332/1928- the different types of commons , emerged through time as a consequence of historical and social evolution? At this point it is necessary to clarify what can be defined as usi civici. They represent perpetual rights (ius lignandi, pascendi, serendi, etc.) of a specific community, on collective, public or private lands. These rights can be exercised uti singulus et uti civis. In the 20th century the expression usi civici has been the object of a process of vulgarization. Doctrine and jurisprudence misused it, applying it to all the situations of common ownership: chaos was the result. The confusion was created by legal doctrine, although it existed already in historical written sources, which report many different meanings of the term, as bona communitativa and communitas. The basis of all forms of collective belongings has always been the community, settled in a given territory and having its own self-organization. Not everybody in fact has the right of access these properties: in pre-modern Italy lands, woods, pastures, and also the fructus offered by nature, were in most cases conceived as common goods, but they belonged and could be enjoyed only by the people who were part of that specific community. The development of the Italian municipal towns (Comuni) did not affect the existing communities, but crept into a pre-existing natural and direct relationship between human beings and land. Thus, history presents a multiplicity of evolving situations of these collective rights, in which it is nevertheless possible to identify some constant elements: indivisibility, unavailability and imprescriptibility. To any settlement of self- organized people - however called: amministrazioni separate dei beni di uso civico, comunanze, partecipanze, regole, università agrarie, etc. - corresponds a specific collective form of utilization. For this reason, to subsume such variety of situations and rights under one single legal model - as the 1927-28 laws quoted above did - appears too narrow and even counterproductive. Ever since the various forms of collective belongings resist to the laws’ fingers. The 1927-28 laws did not recognize the persistence of different realities, and pretended to rule all of them under the legal categories of the Regno di Napoli, one of the regional states existing before the unification of the country in 1870. A reflection of the Italian legislator would therefore be highly welcomed. In the last few years – after 2009 - many promising projects have been started, aimed at introducing and recognising a new category of goods in the Italian Constitution, defined as 'beni collettivi' (common goods). The debate has given new lymph to this field of study, bringing out a renovated conscience for the importance of 'common goods'. The present crises of the capitalistic system shows the need to go back to the origins and to establish a new relationship between human beings and natural resources."
|