Common Goods and the Role of the Contract

The essay is focused on assets held in common and discusses the role that the contract may play in this regard. As a starting point, the idea of common assets emphasizes the interests of a group of persons towards access and exploitation of a certain resource; in this way, common assets put in crisis the traditional concept of private ownership.
This concept has been set up pursuant to an individualistic approach and, therefore, reveals its ineptitude in governing the plural perspective of access and exploitation of certain assets. Nor does recourse to public ownership provide adequate instruments, since it reproduces the issues raised by the general concept of private ownership.
In this scenario, the contract may assume a relevant role, to the extent that it is considered a tool useful not only to regulate the circulation of the assets, but also to organise their use and their management.