Olivia S. Choe, Note, Appurtenancy Reconceptualized:
Managing Water in an Era of Scarcity 113 YALE L.J. 1909 (2004).
(Abstract prepared by James Grimmelmann)
This Note argues
that effective alternatives to comprehensive, centralized management of control over water rights are indeed available. A wide body of scholarship in
anthropology and institutional economics demonstrates that local users in a
variety of contexts, from lobster fishing to irrigation, have been able to
develop sustainable methods for managing scarce, common-pool resources,
thereby overcoming a tragedy of the commons without the need for
government regulation. This Note asserts that the organizational and
institutional insights offered by common property scholarship are relevant
to contemporary water management. These
alternative governance regimes might achieve greater efficiency, higher
levels of conservation, and a viable market in water rights.