Water: A Common Treasury

In this Chapter we examine the notion of water as a common treasury, and the implications that this characterisation of water has for property rights in water. We argue that a property rights system centred on neo-liberal conceptions of absolute private ownership, allowing private dominion over water and its commodification, is inappropriate for water and subverts its role as a common treasury. To enable water to function effectively as a common treasury, we argue, a more appropriate property model is one that emphasises and facilitates collaboration and co-operation rather than competition — in other words, a property rights system which acknowledges and promotes communal property in the forms we describe below