Man on Mars: How Can International Space Law Limit the Environmental Consequences of the Coming Rush for Resources in Space

The body of international law governing space has stood at a standstill for decades. The five central treaties regulating this area of law are not only vague, but they have also become a hindrance to the global community’s ability to address the rapidly intensifying second space race. The treaties do not adequately state who space belongs to, who is entitled to take advantage of the natural resources of celestial bodies, or what protections are afforded to celestial environments in the face of impending mining and resource extraction projects. This impasse within international law has not stopped entrepreneurs and corporations from beginning to explore space on their own and challenging the traditional monopoly that nation states have had over space, creating even more pressure to act quickly. To move forward, the international legal community will have to break out of this standstill and find a way to efficiently and effectively address the new challenges that space exploration poses. Towards this end, this note proceeds in four parts to suggest a possible solution for space’s governance. The first part contextualizes the convergence of technological developments and international relationships and interests to introduce the pressures under which international law must develop to address the ongoing space race. The second part provides a survey of the current body of international law of space including popular, competing proposals of how the legal regime should be structured. The third part reviews hard- and soft-law structures that could become partial models for the governance of space and clarifies common misconceptions that served as obstacles to progress within space law until now. The fourth part proposes a solution based on the environmentally conscious legal structures governing the Arctic Circle, a legal body largely omitted from scholarly discourse around space law, and other features from existing hard-law structures that could be incorporated over time to create a sustainable framework. The note concludes with a summary conclusion of the best path forward to alleviate ongoing tensions and save celestial environments from irreversible harm.