Who Owns the Moon?

Saskia Vermeylen, Senior Lecturer, Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University for The Conversation UK 2014-10-19 12:45:16 UTC

Whether you're into mining, energy or tourism, there are lots of reasons to explore space. Some "pioneers" even believe humanity's survival depends on colonizing celestial bodies such as the Moon and Mars, both becoming central hubs for our further journey into the cosmos. Lunar land peddlers have started doing deals already a one-acre plot can be yours for just 16.75 pounds ($26.96).

More seriously, big corporations, rich entrepreneurs and even United States politicians are eyeing up the Moon and its untapped resources. Russia has plans for a manned colony by 2030 and a Japanese firm wants to build a ring of solar panels around the Moon and beam energy back to Earth.

We need to be clear about the legal validity of extraterrestrial real estate as the same ideas that were once used to justify colonialism are being deployed by governments and galactic entrepreneurs. Without proper regulation, the Moon risks becoming an extra-planetary Wild West.

To figure out whether "earthly" laws can help decide who owns what in space or if anything can be owned at all we must first disentangle sovereignty from property. Back in the 17th century, natural law theorists such as Hugo Grotius and John Locke argued that property rights exist by virtue of human nature but that they can only have legal force when they are recognized by a sovereign government. Within the context of space law, the big question is whether sovereignty reaches infinity how high must you go to escape your country?

When the U.S. was confronted with this query in the early 1950s, it lobbied for the recognition of outer space as a global commons. The Soviet Union was difficult to infiltrate to gather intelligence, so open access to Soviet air space was crucial for the U.S. during the Cold War. Perceiving outer space as a commons was also another way of preventing national sovereignty in space. But neither the USSR nor the U.S. was keen to fight out the Cold War on yet another front. Geopolitics dictated the decision to treat outer space as being non-appropriable.

This principle can be found back in Article 2 of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which clearly forbids "national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, means of use or occupation by any other means." It has been widely accepted: No one complains the various Moon landings or satellites in space have infringed their sovereignty.

However, legal commentators disagree over whether this prohibition is also valid for private appropriation. Some space lawyers have argued for the recognition of real property rights on the basis of jurisdiction rather than territorial sovereignty.

Historical records of the Space Treaty negotiations clearly indicate people were against private appropriations at the time, but an explicit prohibition never made it into Article 2. Lessons have been learned from this omission and the ban was far more explicit in the subsequent Moon Agreement of 1979. However only 16 countries signed the agreement, none of which were involved in manned space exploration, leaving it somewhat meaningless as an international standard.

Consequently, space entrepreneurs such as Dennis Hope from the Lunar Embassy Corporation seem to think that there is a loophole in Article 2 which allows private citizens to claim ownership of the Moon. Most space lawyers disagree however. They point out that states assume international responsibility for activities in space, whether by national companies or private adventurers, and therefore that the same prohibition extends to the private sector.

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Who Owns the Moon?