Private Property and the Commons: The Case Study of Water Distribution in Persian Qanats

Abstract Despite the polysemic nature a unique and dominant model of “property” has spread globally. It finds in the natural law thought its political and moral justification and in the article 544 of the Napoleonic Code its technical translation. The simple rhetoric of proprietary individualism elaborated within the economic analysis of law become the institutional reference in the governance of global economy. But private property is only one model of resources distribution and has not always been the main one for a long time. Comparative legal method shows us that the term property does not have a unique meaning, but it reveals the existence of alternative resource management models such as collective actions that are careful for the protection of fundamental rights and can preserve natural resources for the benefit of future generation.