New Frontiers of Sustainable Human’s Activities: Challenges for Legal Order of Space Mining Economy

Abstract

The exponential development of space activity due to plans to expand space activity on the Moon and other celestial bodies raises many legal tasks to solve in the future. There are a lot of international and national initiatives to build the legal framework of a future sustainable space mining economy. This article is focused on reviewing such initiatives for the aim to reveal the main issues concerning fostering the sustainable development of the space activities on the Moon and other celestial bodies. As a result, the common procedure of the advancing governance, safety zones establishing criterions, the institutionalization of the general recognition of the property rights, benefit-sharing model, interoperability of the internal authorization procedures and technical standards enabling safe and sustainable space mining activities, authoritative dispute resolution procedures have been distinguished. They should become as main conceptual mechanisms for further international and national law-making process.

Keywords

• space mining
• sustainable space activity
• safety zones
• global commons
• space resources