What are the origins of public ownership of rivers, and public rights to use rivers?
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that rivers have been public since ancient times, in all civilized societies. Classical Roman law held that running water is common to mankind. It held that all rivers and ports are public, hence the right of fishing in a port, or in rivers, is common to all men. It held that this is one of the Laws of Nature, which are established by divine providence, and which remain forever fixed and immutable. It recognized public rights to use the banks as well as the surface of the water, on non-navigable as well as navigable rivers. This was based in turn on the laws of Greece and other ancient civilizations. These principles continued into the law of the emerging European nations. In England, some rivers and their banks were fenced off by the medieval Saxon and Norman kings, for private use by the kings and noblemen, but public rights to fish and boat were reaffirmed by Magna Charta in 1215. A major legal treatise in 1250, again citing the Laws of Nature, said t
