The Public Trust Doctrine and Coastal Zone Management: Towards a Model Policy

The Public Trust Doctrine has long been a tenet of American property law and has been utilized to varying degrees in coastal zone management by individual States. Renewed attention to the Doctrine in the past several years, along with a strengthened recognition of the Doctrine in the reauthorized Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), creates an opportunity for coastal program managers to better integrate the Doctrine into federally approved State coastal zone management programs. Incorporating the Public Trust Doctrine into these programs will enable States to apply the Doctrine though State management techniques as well as through federal consistency.