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| 1 |
ID:
169290
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| Summary/Abstract |
On June 6, 2017, a draft bill entitled the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act was introduced to the US House of Representatives. Even though the bill has not been enacted into law yet, its relevance should not be underestimated. Indeed, it not only represents the latest step in regulating the nascent space mining industry but also contains several provisions that, to a large extent, challenges the traditional understanding of basic international space law rules. For example, the draft bill refers to the right of the US entities to engage in space undertaking without conditions or limitations, argues that not all the obligations of the Outer Space Treaty are imputable to those entities, and claims that outer space is not a global commons. In the light of the above, the purpose of the present viewpoint was to review the most innovative, yet controversial, elements of the draft bill and to assess their possible impact on future space resources utilization activities as well as on the overall stability of the space law regime
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| 2 |
ID:
157156
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The past couple of years have witnesses one of the most exciting, yet controversial, developments in the field of space law, namely the adoption of domestic laws authorizing the (private) appropriation and utilization of outer space resources. Even though the technology to effectively mine resources in outer space is still under development countries like the United States and Luxembourg have taken this legislative step as a mean to promote the growth of a domestic private space mining sector.
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| 3 |
ID:
148489
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| Summary/Abstract |
The national space programs have an historic opportunity to help solve the global-scale economic and environmental problems of Earth while becoming more effective at science through the use of space resources. Space programs will be more cost-effective when they work to establish a supply chain in space, mining and manufacturing then replicating the assets of the supply chain so it grows to larger capacity. This has become achievable because of advances in robotics and artificial intelligence. It is roughly estimated that developing a lunar outpost that relies upon and also develops the supply chain will cost about 1/3 or less of the existing annual budgets of the national space programs. It will require a sustained commitment of several decades to complete, during which time science and exploration become increasingly effective. At the end, this space industry will capable of addressing global-scale challenges including limited resources, clean energy, economic development, and preservation of the environment. Other potential solutions, including nuclear fusion and terrestrial renewable energy sources, do not address the root problem of our limited globe and there are real questions whether they will be inadequate or too late. While industry in space likewise cannot provide perfect assurance, it is uniquely able to solve the root problem, and it gives us an important chance that we should grasp. What makes this such an historic opportunity is that the space-based solution is obtainable as a side-benefit of doing space science and exploration within their existing budgets. Thinking pragmatically, it may take some time for policymakers to agree that setting up a complete supply chain is an achievable goal, so this paper describes a strategy of incremental progress. The most crucial part of this strategy is establishing a water economy by mining on the Moon and asteroids to manufacture rocket propellant. Technologies that support a water economy will play an important role leading toward space development.
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| 4 |
ID:
169340
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| Summary/Abstract |
A critical discussion is reemerging in space policy, economics, and law: on the classification, use and possible ownership of space resources, and the governance of these activities in terms of rules and institutions. The US legislation from 2015, recognizing the right of US citizens to all asteroid resources they obtain, clearly signals that “money time” has come, in every meaning. Planetary Resources, Inc. has declared this new legislation “the single greatest recognition of property rights in history”. Yet, the discourse on space resources, which are widely—but not necessarily duly—regarded as “commons”, is unstructured and crippled by the confusion of the notion and essence of “commons” between the economic and the legal meanings. This article provides a critical analysis of the “commons” feature of outer space and outer space resources, based on economic analysis and legal theory. More importantly, this article seeks to provide the structure for this important discourse. The first critical step is to distinguish between (i) commons as an economic term and (ii) commons as a legal regime. The first refers to a type of goods or resource used by multiple users, and the second refers to a property rights regime, the ownership over the resource. A mistake, often made, is the confusion between the economic notion of “commons” and the legal sense of the same concept. An “economic commons”, such as a lake, may have different property rights regimes as it may be private property, government property, or “legal commons”. The second critical differentiation is between the different parts of space (e.g. orbits, celestial bodies, and void space) because some may be “commons” (economic and/or legal) while others may not. Asking whether “space” is commons wrongly puts numerous things in a single basket is a sweeping generalization and, in the economic sense, utterly meaningless. Another important distinction is between resource systems and resource units. If we get the questions wrong, i.e. by confusing the terms and mixing different subjects of inquiry, we will not, by definition, find the right answers. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that the notion of “global commons”, often applied to outer space, is of limited or unclear meaning, and it does not imply the property rights regimes in the domains and resources it presumably describes, including outer space. The article opens with making the aforementioned three distinctions in section two. Sections three and five present, separately, the economic and legal notions of “commons” and examine whether some parts of space qualify as economic and/or legal commons, whereas section four presents the limitations of the notion of “global commons”, thus leading to section five. The article concludes by connecting the economic and legal discussions to the search for appropriate governance models for each part of space. As the article demonstrates, the real questions in the discourse are much more complex than “is space commons?”. Although this article provides preliminary answers to the questions it raises, its main contribution is the reshaping of the question(s) currently being asked and the structuring of the discourse on space resources and their governance.
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| 5 |
ID:
162407
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| Summary/Abstract |
Several private players have expressed their desire to mine resources in space. This posits ethical and legal concerns. Several scholars argue that space mining activities flout the national non-appropriation principle enshrined in Article II of the Outer Space Treaty. However, it is the opinion of the author that space mining does not per se violate the provisions of Article II, though space mining brings forward other concerns of breach of cooperation and environmental damage. The current legal regime is not adequately equipped to address these problems. The national legislations of several countries which allow for space mining do not address these issues. Even though an international regime emulating deep seabed mining addresses some of these concerns, the current political structure is not in favor of such a development. Hence, the legal viability of any potential space mining industry is on tenuous terms.
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