A Mediterranean Biome Eco-State: Reorienting sovereignty in the Mediterranean Basin and its four global correlatives

Abstract

The Mediterranean Basin is the largest of five regions around the world that constitute, in aggregate, the Mediterranean Woodlands, Forests, and Scrub.Biome under a commonly-used global ecological classification system. All of.these regions – the Mediterranean Basin itself as well as the similar ecological.regions in California, Chile, South Africa, and Australia – face severe ecological.degradation, largely because of agricultural practices. Traditional nation-states cannot address this ecological crisis adequately. A new form of political organization – an “Eco-State” – can and should be established for this purpose. Doing so will require a reorientation of the centuries-old notion of sovereignty, a reorientation that is already underway in some respects. The Mediterranean.Biome Eco-State would build on this momentum. It would hold binding.authority over all ecological and agricultural aspects of the territories falling.within its boundaries, thus exercising a form of blended sovereignty that it.would share with other authorities. This essay summarizes some key aspects of.such a new Mediterranean Biome Eco-State.