Space and Planetary Law & Governance

Convened by Benedict Kingsbury and Katrina M. Wyman

Space law was built in a flurry of UN resolutions and treaties in the 1960s, but the inter-state process then largely stalled with irreconcilable differences among major space-faring states and between them and others. Near-space and earth orbit are now active zones in state-provided GNSS and earth observation and weather satellites, in commercial programs, and militarily. Private commercial space operators are leaders in launch, reusability, satellites, and space communications – to some extent they are governing space through their operating procedures (eg collision avoidance protocols, de-orbiting to avoid adding to space junk) and their unilateral acts (eg bright Starlink satellites impairing astronomical time-series observations.) States and private operators interact normatively on matters ranging from outbound and inbound contamination, to planetary defense from asteroid-strike, to asteroid mining, to launch-state liability for injury to third parties. Arbitrations and other legalized dispute settlement are now appearing. At the same time, near-space is part of the enormous challenges of building climate/oceans and earth-systems models, monitoring behavior, and potentially further efforts to curb planetary change. Geo-engineering through stratospheric solar radiation management is one area of controversial interfaces between space and earth in which governance is fragmented.

This course enables students to deepen thinking about these issues, and to participate (if desired) through research and scholarship in a major new cross-disciplinary Guarini and IILJ research project on planetary and space law. 

Public speaker sessions

Feb, 4, 2025: History and Development of US Governmental Approach into Space (Guest Speaker, Professor Matthew Hersch, Associate Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University)

[More to be announced]

Tuesdays Vanderbilt Hall 202 3:40-6:40 PM