Description
Entrenched power structures within international law-making create a second class of weaker states, empowering first class states to set the law in the tabula rasa of outer space. Exercise of the freedom of use in outer space is subject to the condition that the uses undertaken ‘shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries’ (Article I OST). Development of this freedom is being shaped by the dominant, space farers in their own image. Central to this drive is a concerted effort to export state-centric ideologies founded upon a growth-centric privatisation of Outer Space. However, Richard A Falk, a founder of the ecocide movement, argues that a predominantly Westphalian model of governance is ‘hopelessly outdated’, and that its predication on Western ‘economistic secularism … has failed - indeed, … exacerbating “problems of poverty, inequality, [and] conflict”’. As it stands, developing space nations are unable to contest the will of the major space powers. As noted by Ryngaert, ‘jurisdiction is grounded on the capacity to coerce’. In this regard, the structures of the international law machinery inherently enable powerful States to impose their legislative will on weaker States. As space exploration rapidly develops, we are presented with a rare opportunity to recast our human values and relationships in this politically-pristine environment. This paper first, re-thinks the structures within international law making, seeking moves towards models which facilitate genuine dialogue between states as equals. Secondly, it invites us to not repeat in outer space, the terrestrial modus operandi which has inflicted grave injustices upon the peoples and the environments of the world; to realise instead a vision of outer space that upholds freedom of use for the genuine ‘benefit and in the interests of all countries’.
