On The General Legal Principles Of The Nation's Distribution Of Natural Resources

Justice is the life of law. As a system to distribute resources, law is aimed to realize justice. In the worsening situation of the extinction of resources, maximum and optimal distribution of the value of the resources shows "the justice in efficiency". Meanwhile, law's distribution of resource should also aim at "the justice as fairness", which will ensure the equality in the rights to share resources, including the equality in the same generation as well as that of inter-generation. The functions in ecological value require that the resource distribution should not only focus on the efficiency value, it should also protect the ecological interests for Man in the long run. In the existing legal system of distribution, these values should be confirmed as the legal principles for the sake of justice in the distribution of resources.After a survey of the resource distribution system in the outline of the constitution, the law on real right and the law on natural resources in China, this paper argues that the present system takes the efficiency as everything while it ignores the justice as fairness. At the same time, the system lacks in the reasonable guiding principle. The vague objectives shown in the legal system don't pay due attention to the value of fairness. Therefore, after the study on the attributes of resources and analysis in its basic values, the paper presents the criteria in equity of efficiency value and fairness value. Besides, it points out that the following principles should be confirmed and carried out in the legal distribution of resources: the principle of supremacy of the neediest living conditions, the principle of efficiency, the principle of ecological preservation and the principle of sustainable exploration. The legal system of resource distribution based on these principles will serve to facilitate the pursuit of justice in the distribution of resources.