Saving Icarus from Hubris: Creating a Sustainable Roadmap for Solving Colliding Laws and Ethics in Outer Space

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to anticipate and help solve potential and future issues raised by the collision of several legal principles and higher ethical principles with regards to the development of the outer space economy, especially within a context of accelerated commercialization of outer space activities and privatization of the sector. Not only does this commercialization affect the development of the sector, but it also incentivises the privatization of the law process and substance. Potential conflicts in the situation ahead would involve inter alia tensions between the corpus juris spatialis principles such as solidarity, equality to access and resources, non-appropriation, province of all mankind, etc. and lex mercatoria dynamics such as competition law mechanisms and transnational loopholes escaping national or international legislation. Furthermore, long-term initiatives and debate around endeavors targeting outer space activities in the far future such as asteroid mining, celestial body settlements and terraforming will be addressed from a legal and ethical perspective as to assess their potential compliance with an ethical regime yet to be established. The issues anticipated within this paper will be identified under the format of an interdisciplinary roadmap leading to transdisciplinary solutions for each one of them and lead to a series of recommendations establishing several paths towards a sustainable space economic development in the long run.