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Fishery as Collective Resource. Review on ItalianLegislation: Italian Unity – PresentP. Sobbrio 1 , V. Pipitone 21, Department of Legal studies, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy2, Institute for Coastal Marine Environment, CNR, Mazara del Vallo (TP), Italyvito.pipitone@iamc.cnr.itAbstractThe essay offers a new analysis of the Italian fisheries legislation since the 19thcentury.It shows that the Italian Parliament felt the need to meet the criteria for the protectionof the marine ecosystem, increase the sustainability of fishing practices and the adoptionof rules guided by the precautionary principle in times in which this principlewas completely unknown, at least in the modern sense.Through regulation of practices that have an impact on the environmental balance,the attention for environment is an ancient concept that we find today in any assessmentand legal ethics relating to environmental policy, bolstered by recourse to theprecautionary principle.1 IntroductionAs Aristotle remarked, “what is collectiveis barely looked after, since men have greatrespect for what belongs to them and verylittle for what they own in communion withthe others”. The consequence of all thisis that the management of the environmentalresources, (of the fish ones, on whichwe will focus), proves a rather complex activity.The issue gets more and more significantif we consider that every individuallives its life surrounded by environmentalresources shared and exploited togetherwith other human beings, with permanentmanagement difficulties.For their intrinsic features, environmentalresources are goods which are available foreveryone, since it is not possible nor opportuneto exclude some from the benefitsderiving from the use of the goods. Yet theconsume in favour of one individual affectsthe capacity of utilization of all other individuals.This condition originates a negativeexternality: with the increase of thenumber of people using the asset, the utilitythat these obtain from the asset tendsto a constant decrease and those specificitieswhich make the asset precious risk tobe cancelled and to provoke a damage notonly to the present community, (which cannotuse it) but also to the future generations,which cannot claim rights on it. Asa matter of fact, in presence of externalities,the market cannot harness all the costsand benefits bound to the production anduse of the asset, with the consequence thatthe market balance diverges from the socialoptimum. In presence of externalities, themarket fails in its role of efficient allocator,thus exposing the natural resources to overexploitation.To correct the market inefficiency, the com-