Status of the Natural Resources of Celestial Bodies: Legal Positions of the USA and Luxembourg

The outer space legal acts adopted by the USA and by Luxembourg provide for the rights of natural and juridical persons to use natural resources of celestial bodies. These acts are considered in the context of applicable rules of international law with references to the relevant teachings. General scientific methods of cognition and methods of legal sciences are used. The USA and Luxembourg space legal acts in many aspects correspond to the applicable international law while in some do not. The two States have suggested a new legal approach to the future development of international outer space law that further exacerbates the interstate competition for a more favorable legal environment for private persons to invest in economic activities in outer space. The legal regime of such activities have long been regarded as regulated exclusively on the basis of five general multilateral treaties elaborated within the UN the core of which is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The situation has now changed with the separate legal regime of outer space activities promoted by the USA and Luxembourg. Such a “parallel” legal regime while creating a favorable environment for investments by individuals and non-governmental entities in the development of the natural resources of celestial bodies, has at the same time negative legal consequences for the community of States as a whole: the USA and Luxembourg pursue a separate policy aimed at revising the universal international outer space law according to which the exploration and use of celestial bodies are the “province of all mankind”.