Law and Liberty on the Moon

Authors

Frans von der Dunk, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

2022

Citation

Frans von der Dunk, "Law and Liberty on the Moon," chapter 27 in Charles S. Cockell (ed.), The Institutions of Extraterrestrial Liberty, Cambridge, Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 464–474.

doi: 10.1093/oso/9780192897985.003.0028

Comments

Copyright © 2022 Frans von der Dunk. Used by permission.

Abstract

As on Earth, so in outer space . .

Most of those participating in humankind’s venturing into outer space, in particular to the extent of establishing settlements there and thereby providing for a second home for humanity, would hope or even assume that humankind in so doing might be able to avoid the sometimes rather bloody developments that accompanied settlement in far-away territories on Earth. However, at least in the legal area, with a view to its role as providing not only justice and fairness but also predictability and foreseeability, logic dictates that terrestrial laws and experiences of these laws will certainly initially determine also the ways in, and extent to, which individual liberties, already addressed and acknowledged to such varying extents on Earth, will be applied and even enforced, or by contrast suppressed or extinguished, in outer space.

Given the major challenges of living in an environment which will remain extremely hostile at least for many decades or even centuries to come, the role of the law in balancing the overriding importance of collective public goods—access to oxygen and other life-or-death resources, settlement-encompassing safety, and avoidance of any armed conflicts—with the individual liberties that would in the last resort legitimize humankind’s efforts to settle there in the first place is even more important than on Earth, and will require very thoughtful adaptation of legal concepts, principles, rules, rights, and obligations to that strange and dangerous environment.

Perhaps a variety of settlements, with a variety of legal approaches based on terrestrial background and experience, provides the best chance that ultimately, the legal regime which would be most beneficial and benevolent for humankind will triumph. At least in that respect current international space law, by way of its approaches to sovereignty and jurisdiction as illustrated by this chapter’s three scenarios, already provides an interesting and potentially very helpful point of departure.