When the authors of this book told people that we were working on a book about customary law and sustainable development, we often encountered puzzled looks. A few people said, “What's sustainable development?” Many more asked, “What's customary law?” Others wondered how two such disparate topics could be related?

Chapter 1 begins by briefly discussing the meaning of each of the two phrases, and suggests the nature of the linkage between them. Here we raise the question of whether and under what conditions customary law might be looked to as a way of developing natural resources in a sustainable and precautionary manner. Recent research by Elinor Ostrom and others has called attention to the key role that common-pool resources play in sustainable solutions to natural resource management. Many customary law systems employ an intricate mix of public, private and common property concepts. Sometimes such a mix can better achieve sustainability in situations where a system that adamantly relied on private or public property alone may have failed.

Chapter 2 discusses three illustrative instances of the use of customary law in natural resource management in three different areas of the world: Hawaii, Northern Norway and Greenland. By putting the case studies up front, it is our intention not only to describe the conflicts briefly, but also to get in just “enough” law so that readers can proceed to the more detailed chapters of their choice.