Can law be used to protect and advance the commons? One of the most promising new developments here is a new jurisprudence of biocultural rights. Biocultural rights represent a bold new departure in human rights law that recognizes the importance of a communitys stewardship over lands and waters. Instead of focusing on individual rights and private property, biocultural rights explicitly recognize a communitys identity, culture, governance system, spirituality and way of life as embedded in a specific landscape. In other words, it recognizes the existence of a commons.

http://www.countercurrents.org/bollier140415.htm