Many of the challenges to just and socially-ecological land policies – including displacement, opaque ownership structures, land concentration, soil degradation, and the financialization of land – are interlinked across urban and rural contexts. Initiatives based in both urban and rural settings have worked on analyzing these problems and developing strategies to address them. Efforts have been directed towards securing land access, especially for small-scale farms, ensuring equitable land and housing distribution, and preventing further soil degradation. To bridge the urban-rural divide, the program fostered networks among activists, researchers, administrators, and policymakers. One of the outcomes of this collaboration is the book Stadt-Land-Boden – Verbindende Bodenpolitik zwischen Stadt und Land (Urban-rural-soil: Connecting land policy between urban and rural areas), forthcoming from transcript in 2025, which delves into unified land policies connecting urban and rural settings.

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A key focus was the operationalization of Article 15 of the German Constitution, which provides for the socialization of land. The group addressed two key issues: how to unravel opaque ownership structures and how to develop criteria for determining which parcels should be transferred to common ownership. They also explored the issue of fair compensation for previous owners, a critical aspect of the transfer process.

These issues were addressed in expert workshops, and the group's proposals will contribute to the ongoing drafting of a socialization law by the Deutsche Wohnen & Co. initiative. This initiative aims to put a socialization law to a referendum in Berlin in 2026.

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• Value and Valuation of Land and Real Estate
• What is the value of land? Should land be valued?

Despite growing interest in commons as a means of social-ecological transformation, the legal and institutional frameworks to support such initiatives remain underdeveloped. In collaboration with commons scholar and activist David Bollier, the program brought together an international group of experts to examine how to build and strengthen legal infrastructures that facilitate and sustain commoning practices.

This international dialogue is critical to resisting the dominance of global market systems and supporting more autonomous, cooperative, and sustainable approaches to land management. A forthcoming synthesis report will provide further insights into this work.

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Beyond terrestrial land commons, the program also contributed to the discussion on the governance of global commons, particularly the seabed. Governments are currently negotiating a Mining Code for the commercial exploitation of minerals on the deep seabed – considered the common heritage of humankind – via the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Meanwhile, there is growing momentum for a moratorium to protect ocean ecosystems.

The inter- and transdisciplinary workshop “Re-Designing the International Seabed Authority” on February 27-28, 2024 was jointly convened by the programs Reclaiming Common Wealth and Governing the Planetary Commons as well as fellow Frederic Hanusch. It explored how the International Seabed Authority could be transformed into a democratic institution that represents not only human interests but also those of non-human actors, such as marine ecosystems. Furthermore, the workshop examined how the International Seabed Authority might facilitate cohabitation on Earth and in the deep sea, treating these environments as commons. Participants included indigenous activists, marine biologists, international lawyers, political scientists, and artists.

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• Tiefseebodenbergbau und Planetares Denken
• Podcast: appropriate - Global Commons Series