The Sky Trust and the Public Trust Doctrine

Background/Question/Methods The public trust doctrine obliges governments to manage common natural resources in the best interest of their citizens, both current and future. One way to apply the doctrine is to sue governments /after/ they violate it. An alternative approach is to establish public trusts to pro-actively manage common resources on behalf of all citizens and future generations. Such trusts would differ from ordinary government agencies in that they would have an explicit fiduciary responsibility to future generations. In some cases, they could finance their activities through sales of limited (and often declining) quantities of private usage rights.

Results/Conclusions The ‘sky trust’ model, which I will discuss, is one example of this approach.