Canadian, UK Law Professors Condemn Space Mining Provisions of Commercial Space Act (examiner.com)

MarkWhittington writes: The Commercial Space Launch Act, which includes provisions allowing American companies the right to keep resources that they mine in space, was recently signed into law by President Barack Obama. While the act has been hailed as groundbreaking in the United States, the space mining title has gotten an angry reaction overseas. In an article in Science Alert, Gbenga Oduntan, Senior Lecturer in International Commercial Law, University of Kent, condemned the space mining provisions as environmentally risky and a violation of international law. Ram Jakhu, a professor at Canada's McGill University's Institute of air and space law, adds that space mining is a violation of the Outer Space Treaty and should not be allowed.

Comments

The treaty says no such thing.

[bistromath007]

It prohibits the militarization and/or colonization of space. It says fuckall about what to do with any stuff we collect there. What a disingenuous asshole.

Re:The treaty says no such thing.

[ColdWetDog]

Much of how one looks at this depends on your time frame. Certainly in the near (20-50 year) future, asteroid mining won't be economically practical. And for longer time periods it may never be practical. But, our ability to cast the future is very poor. If you have money to burn in the interim, you can make an argument that staking out the high ground (so to speak) is indeed economically sensible way to spend part of your (or better yet, some other poor suckers) money.

The big question is who gets to decide about this? A couple of bored, space nutter billionaires or some law professor somewhere?

Nope

[JBMcB]

"Meanwhile, the Moon Agreement (1979) has in effect forbidden states to conduct commercial mining on planets and asteroids until there is an international regime for such exploitation. While the US has refused to sign up to this, it is binding as customary international law"

This guy is a specialist in international law? You didn't sign up for a treaty, but it's still binding? Sure we'll see how that goes.

ownership of an object, sovereignty over territor

[raymorris]

There are two distinct issues here. First, the common law says that if a person harvests a wild animal, plant, or other thing, it is his to eat or otherwise use. That's about ownership of an object.

A different, though related concept, is that the first -country- to start using some territory has a claim of sovereignty over that territory. Meaning essentially that the area becomes part of that country.

The treaty says that -sovereignty- rules are different in space, no country can claim the moon or another planet as part of their country, by colonizing it. The treaty's Article 2 reads, "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to_national_appropriation_by_claim_of_sovereignty_, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."

The treaty says that Mars wouldn't become part of the the USA if the US colonized it. It does NOT say that you can't go to Mars, pick up a rock, bring it home, and then own that rock. That's ownership of an object, not sovereignty over territory, and the treaty doesn't prohibit ownership of an object.