Definition from Wikipedia (itself a Commons): "The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately."

"In the midst of this state of affairs there is a third set of interests that must be represented—the global commons. In fact, the commons represents the vast array of assets that enable the private and public sectors to create value in the first place. Amazing as it may seem, the interests of the earth as a totality have not been represented. The time has come for the inclusion of the commons in our collective dialogue, not only on the issue of climate change, but more broadly, on creating a world that works for everyone." - Leo Burke

In this paper, Jouni Paavola investigates the potential of institutional diversity and polycentric governance to deal effectively with climate change. Starting with the recognition that top-down governance solutions are a “false panacea,” Paavola observes that although climate change is, indeed, a global commons problem, that does not necessarily mean global governance is the most effective or efficient way of dealing with it.

If the human species is going to overcome the many interconnected ecological catastrophes now confronting us, this moment in history requires that we entertain some bold modifications of our legal structures and political culture. 

The Law for the Commons Wiki is a first attempt to survey the more significant realms of commons-based legal innovation today. Besides providing a rough inventory of dozens of projects and theaters of legal engagement, this wiki seeks to treat these very disparate bodies of law and legal activism as a single field of inquiry, Law for the Commons. If we are serious about catalyzing systemic change, we need to develop a coherent vision for the role that state law must play, however imperfectly, and develop legal and policy mechanisms that work.

The Commons, as an idea and practice, has emerged as a new social, political and economic dynamic. Along with the market and the state, the Commons is a thirdmode of societal organization. The Commons and Peer to Peer (P2P) together form a system based on the practices and needs of civil society and the environment itinhabits, evolving away from obsolete, centrally planned systems or the competitive dictates of market economies. But what are the Commons and P2P, and how do they interrelate? This Primer explores these concepts.

The Commons Transition Platform is a database of practical experiences and policy proposals aimed toward achieving a more humane and environmentally grounded mode of societal organization.

A new collection of 73 essays that describe the enormous potential of the commons in conceptualizing and building a better future, edited by David Bollier and Silke Helfrich.

Commons magazine is a publication of On the Commons (OTC), a commons movement strategy center founded in 2001 to build and bring visibility to the commons movement.

Although it is often associated with Britain and its colonies, the commons as place and process can be found in societies from Central America to South Asia and, most recently, cyberspace. A commons is a resource, most often land, and refers both to the territory and to the ways people allocate the goods that come from that land. The commons has traditionally provided food, fuel, water, and medicinal plants for those who used it—it was the poorest people’s life-support system.

http://www.utne.com/Politics/Commons-Reclaiming-Shared-Resources-Raj-Patel

Simon Fairlie describes how the progressive enclosure of commons over several centuries has deprived most of the British people of access to agricultural land. The historical process bears little relationship to the “Tragedy of the Commons”, the theory which ideologues in the neoliberal era adopted as part of a smear campaign against common property institutions.

http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enclosure-britain