Outer Space and International Geography Article II and The Shape of Global Order

Outer Space and International
Geography: Article II and the Shape of

Global Order
P.J. BLOUNT*
INTRODUCTION
I
n an 1898 serialized science fiction novel, Thomas Edison travels to
space in true Victorian fashion, taking with him a menagerie of
scientists from Earth including geologists and miners to go and
attack Mars. As their adventures ensue, the intrepid group of explorers
finds an asteroid made of gold that is actively being mined by the
Martians:
The more we saw of this golden planet the greater became our
astonishment. What the Martians had removed was a mere
nothing in comparison with the entire bulk of the asteroid. Had
the celestial mine been easier to reach, perhaps they would have
removed more, or, possibly, their political economists perfectly
understood the necessity of properly controlling the amount of
precious metal in circulation. Very likely, we thought, the mining
operations were under government control in Mars and it might
be that the majority of the people there knew nothing of this store
of wealth floating in the firmament.1
Ever since this publication, one of the ongoing themes found in both
science fiction and science fact is a human desire to access that “store of
wealth floating in the firmament.” Interestingly, this early work recognizes
not just the technical difficulties with extracting resources from space but
also the governance obstacles of such activities.
Today, these same difficulties and obstacles remain despite the
tremendous advances in both technology and governance. Setting aside the
technical issues, the current challenge for both law and policy flows
* Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of Law, Economics, and Finance, University of

Luxembourg and Adjunct Professor, LL.M. in Air and Space Law, University of Mississippi
School of Law.
1 GARRETT P. SERVISS, EDISON’S CONQUEST OF MARS (1898).
95
96 New England Law Review [Vol. 52 | 2
primarily from Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits states
from “appropriating” space, the Moon, and other celestial bodies. The
problem is that Article II is notoriously ambiguous in its wording and its
implications for property rights, both in terms of real property and in terms
of chattel property over extracted space resources. While this ambiguity
has been a boon to scholars looking for tenuous situations to write articles
on, it is now being cast as an obstacle for an emerging group of private
enterprises that aim to extract and to use for commercial purposes the vast
resources that are floating in the firmament. This article will delve into this
ambiguity in order to elucidate the content of the Article II norm in light of
its history and of state practice.
This article will first contextualize Article II to better understand its
origins. This section will argue that the original intent behind the adoption
of Article II was to settle questions of international geography, namely the
nature of state territory in space, which accounts for its silence in terms of
property. This discussion will lay the foundation for the ensuing analysis
of property in the outer space environment. The second section of this
article will examine a variety of precedents that help reveal the nature of
Article II as understood by the state parties to the Outer Space Treaty in
relation to space resources. This analysis will examine state practice with
regard to territorial claims, real property claims, and chattel property
claims, which all touch on the legal content of Article II. Finally, this article
will address the future of the non-appropriation principle and argue that it
can accommodate both the maintenance of stability and security in space as
well as proposed commercial use and exploitation of space resources. This
section will conclude by arguing that states should avoid a race to bottom
in terms of developing legal regimes surrounding property rights and
resource extraction in space by balancing the benefit of the commercial
activity with the values and principles that underpin international space
law.
Before starting in this endeavor, it is important to note what this article
will not do. First, this article will focus squarely on the law and policy
found within the bounds of the Outer Space Treaty and customary
international law. It will not delve into the Moon Agreement in depth,
though reference will be made as needed. This is because the Moon
Agreement, while positing a workable system for the use and exploitation
of extraterrestrial resources, has not been widely accepted and serves a
minor role in the contemporary regime. Second, this article will not attempt
to offer a solution to the Article II problem. While it will suggest that there
are core values that need to be implemented in any regime or institution
that regulates resource extraction, whether domestic or international, it will
stop short of detailing specific recommendations for those regimes.
2018] Outer Space and International Geography 97
I. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon
The non-appropriation principle first found its way into the vocabulary
of international space law in the 1961 United Nations General Assembly
(UNGA) resolution on outer space. Resolution 1721 (XVI) “commends”
states to use space according to two principles:
(a) International law, including the Charter of the United
Nations, applies to outer space and celestial bodies;
(b) Outer space and celestial bodies are free for exploration and
use by all States in conformity with international law and are not
subject to national appropriation.2
This is the first time that a UNGA resolution refers to “principles”

guiding space activities.3 As a result, these two principles maintain a place
of primacy in space law and touch on the legality of all space activities
engaged in or attributable to states. To add weight to this proposition, this
resolution was decided without a vote, meaning that if not unanimous
there was, at least, little controversy in the content of these provisions. 4 Of
course, it is prudent to note that a UNGA resolution is not binding on
states, but unanimous adoption of “principles” is at the very least strong
indication of international political will.5
What we see then, at the earliest inception of rules regulating space, is
an emerging consensus as to the application of international law as a
governing system, and the exclusion of space and celestial bodies from
“appropriation,” whatever that may mean.6 Over fifty years later, these
principles remain at the core of the international space law regime as
Articles I, II, and III of the Outer Space Treaty. But, to be quippy, a funny
thing happened on the way to the Moon. While the application of
international law to outer space has remained non-controversial, the
content of Article II has increasingly been the target of criticism by
scholars, politicians, and commercial actors alike. This criticism posits that
2 G.A. Res. 1721, U.N. GAOR, 16th Sess., Supp. No. 17, vol. XVI, at 6, U.N. Doc.
A/RES/1721 (XVI) (1961).

3 See, e.g., G.A. Res. 1348, U.N. GAOR, 13th Sess., Supp. No. 18, vol. I, at 5–6, U.N. Doc.
A/RES/1348 (XIII) (1958); G.A. Res. 1472, U.N. GAOR, 14th Sess., Supp. No. 16, at 5, U.N. Doc.
A/RES/1472 (XIV) (1959) (illustrating that while earlier resolutions do not mention items such
as “benefit of all mankind” and “peaceful purposes,” which later becomes principles guiding
outer space activity, they fall short of referring to them as such”).
4 Resolutions Adopted by the General Assembly at its 16th Session, UNITED NATIONS,
https://perma.cc/4927-DS7T (last updated June 4, 2019).

5 See BIN CHENG, STUDIES IN INT’L SPACE LAW 136–37 (1997) (arguing that under certain
circumstances UNGA resolutions can create “instant” customary law, but he argues against
these early resolutions taking on such status).
6 G.A. Res. 1962, U.N. GAOR, 18th Sess., Supp. No. 15, vol. XVIII, at 15, U.N. Doc
A/RES/1962 (vol. XVIII) (1963) (confirming a set of “legal principles” that govern outer space).
non-appropriation, instead of being a critical principle in international

space law, is a central downfall in the entire regime.
This section seeks to trace this history, and contextualize non-
appropriation within the competing narratives on its purpose to better
understand how the consensus seen in the early UNGA resolutions has
eroded. It will argue that non-appropriation was a mechanism through
which the outer space environment could be brought into the logics of
international geography, and that this has left severe ambiguity as to the
nature of property rights in space and over space resources.
A. International Geography
Before jumping into the specifics of the non-appropriation principle, it

is important to characterize it within the larger legal system. While
international space law is a lex specialis, it exists within the confines and
logics of international law. Resolution 1721 (XVI) acknowledged that
states, as the traditional subjects of international law, agreed that
international law would be the governing system in outer space. At the
time, this was critically important. International law, and importantly its
core goals, were significantly remade after World War II through the
adoption of the UN Charter, which deployed a specific geography that will
be referred to as the “international geography” herein.
The post-1945 settlement of international law represents the most
recent in a number of reorganizations of “world-scale” governance.7
Stemming from the European tradition, the history of international law is
marked by the accommodation of new areas or spaces that do not fit within
the scope of the reigning contemporary spatial order. Indeed, the roots of
international law attempt to explain how the high seas and the newly
discovered (by the Europeans, at least) New World fit within the settled
spatial order at the time.8 Similarly, the Peace of Westphalia redeployed
geography within Europe to establish the concept of territorial sovereignty
through the establishment of the state as an entity. 9 Throughout each of
these iterations of geography, the developing international legal system
sought to categorize all physical areas and impose on each a specific legal
geography.
The result of World War II, in legal terms, was no different. The UN
Charter imposes a specific legal geography at the world-scale, which
7 See SASKIA SASSEN, TERRITORY, AUTHORITY, RIGHTS: FROM MEDIEVAL TO GLOBAL
ASSEMBLAGES 14 (2006).
8 See CARL SCHMITT, THE NOMOS OF THE EARTH IN THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE JUS
PUBLICUM EUROPAEUM 42–44, 86, 140 (2003); MANFRED LACHS,
THE LAW OF OUTER SPACE: AN EXPERIENCE IN CONTEMPORARY LAW-MAKING 19–20 (2010); IAN
CLARK, LEGITIMACY IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY 35–38 (2005).
9 SCHMITT, supra note 8, at 143–45.
shapes the contours of global order. This order again attempts to

encompass all spatial areas on Earth and apply specific legal categorization
to each area. At the highest level, the system differentiates between spaces
that are state territories or spaces that are non-territorial, such as global
commons.10 Territory is the space within a state’s borders, and is therefore
subject to the local rules of that state. The UN system allows states to
become members of the UN, which grants them the right to have their
“territorial integrity” respected by other members.11 The UN system does
allow for non-self-governing areas, which are those overseen by another
state or the UN. These spaces are excluded from UN membership, but the
governing authority is given the duty to “their progressive development
towards self-government or independence,” indicating the goal that these
spaces become territory.12 This second category is notable because the UN
Charter began the process of delegitimizing colonization and conquest by
force as the age of empires wound to a close. The international geography
deployed by the UN Charter is one in which land area is (or as soon as is
feasible in the future will be) part of the territorial sovereignty of a state. It
attempts to create a seamless geography of hard borders that are legally
impervious from interference from external entities. 13 Territory in this
system becomes synonymous with legal personhood, and the right to
exclude others from it are connected less with notions of ownership and
more with notions of political autonomy of each state as a sovereign equal.
The 1945 system adopted the traditional rules governing the high seas
since they were traditionally outside of state territory, as indicated by the
historical three-mile rule, which represented the physical limitations of
state control in terms of the distance a cannonball could fire. 14 Early on the
system was presented with the problem of the status of Antarctica. Under
the traditional rules, states had made imperialist claims to the Antarctic
continent. Antarctica, though, was not so much the introduction of new
physical space as much as it was a problem of sorting out competing claims
that emerged within the previous legal system. Antarctic law functions
based on the permanent suspension of territorial claims to the landmass by
the states that maintained them at the dawn of the modern system. 15
Therefore, outer space became the first challenge to the new system of
10 See P.J. Blount & Christian J. Robison, One Small Step: The Impact of the U.S. Commercial
Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 on the Exploitation of Resources in Outer Space, 18 N.C. J.
L. & TECH. 160, 170–72 (2016) (discussing global commons as a typology of spatial order).
11 U.N. CHARTER, art. 2, para 4.
12 U.N. CHARTER, art. 76(b).
13 See SCHMITT, supra note 8, at 185, 187 (referring to the “bracketing” of war).
14 SCHMITT, supra note 8, at 183.
15 Antarctic Treaty, Dec. 1, 1959, T.I.A.S. No. 4780, 402 U.N.T.S 71, 12 E.S.T. 794, (entered
into force June 23, 1961).

international law in terms of the introduction of new spatial possibilities,

and it cannot be overstated that new spatial possibilities had the potential
to shake the new system to its core. A critical goal of a seamless
international geography was the elimination of war. The architects of the
system would have been acutely aware that historically a major cause of
war was the military conquest of new territories, which was the hallmark
of the preceding imperial system of world-scale governance. While the
orbiting of Sputnik I ushered a myriad of issues into world politics, central
to these was how to keep conflict resulting from territorial conquest of
space. Such conquest was de-legitimized as a matter of international law in
the post-1945 settlement, which rejected imperialism as a mechanism of
world-scale governance. However, this depended on the seamless
international geography imposed by the UN Charter, which did not
contemplate space activities. Extending international law into space was
the first step in making space part of the international geography and
rejecting notions of imperial conquest. The non-apporpriation principle, in
effect, categorizes space and celestial bodies as “not territory” so as to
revoke the incentives that drive such conquest.
Article II must be read in terms of its fit within the international legal
system as a rejection of imperial processes within outer space or on
celestial bodies. Its core goal, similar to international law in general, is not
to characterize territory or things as “ownable,” but instead to promote
international peace and security by delineating between the spatial area in
which a state has sovereignty and spatial areas in which the state does not.
Rather than “ownability,” the non-appropriation principle is about
“rulability,” that is whether or not a state can govern a territory.
B. The Outer Space Treaty and the Geography of Space
It is within this context that we must approach the non-appropriation

principle as codified in Article II of the Outer Space Treaty. This
subsection will attempt to show how Article II functions within the text of
the treaty as a whole, and indicate the ambiguities inherent in the
construction of Article II.
Article II states simply that “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.”16
Before delving into the text of the provision itself, it should be noted that
the non-appropriation principle was well established by the time that the
Outer Space Treaty was negotiated through consecutive consensus
16 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of
Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies art. II, Sept. 25, 1967, 610
U.N.T.S. 205 (entered into force Oct. 10 1967) [hereinafter Outer Space Treaty].
adopted UNGA resolutions.17 Further, the Outer Space Treaty was a

product of the consensus process of the UN Committee on the Peaceful
Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS).18 At the international level there was
consensus on the principle. Indeed, as Gangale shows us, the principle was
not the subject of intense debate either during the negotiation process nor
the ratification process.19
The states that were adopting the treaty did not understand Article II
to be in conflict with either international law or domestic law. It is
submitted that this is because states primarily understood Article II as an
articulation of international geography rather than an articulation of a
limitation on the right to use outer space and celestial bodies, a right that
takes a primary position in Article I of the Outer Space Treaty. As a result,
the travaeux preparatoires does little to elucidate the content of Article II as it
relates to ideas of property.20 While Article II itself is ambiguous, it is
important to remember that it must be read within the overall purpose and
scope of the treaty as other treaty provisions can add significantly to our
understanding of Article II.21
The first thing to note is that Article II effectuates a ban on “national
appropriation,” but this term is not defined. Even more problematic, the
legal term is unique to the space context and is not found in other
international agreements governing non-territorial areas. Indeed,
international law is most often concerned with the “acquisition” of
territory.22 Non-appropriation does, however, ring true to the anti-imperial
aspirations of the Outer Space Treaty, which tracks with the ideological
common ground between the two Cold War superpowers of the US and
the USSR. It also tracks with the newly deployed international geography,
which for the first time in global history attempted to contain all terrestrial
spaces within the bounds of national borders that marked states as holders
of legal personhood within the system. This legal autonomy was protected
by a legal prohibition against the use of force, which was intended to
17 Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and
Use of Outer Space, Dec. 13, 1963, U.N.G.A. Res. 18/62 (stating that the 1963 Declaration of
Legal Principles is widely accepted as a statement of customary international law); G.A. Res.
1962, U.N. GAOR, 18th Sess., Supp. No. 15, vol. XVIII, at 15, U.N. Doc A/RES/1962 (vol. XVIII)
(1963) (confirming a set of “legal principles” that govern outer space).
18 Sergio Marchisio, The Evolutionary Stages of the Legal Subcommittee of the United Nations
Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), 31 J. SPACE L. 219, 224 (2005).
19 Thomas Gangale, The Legality of Mining Celestial Bodies, 40 J. SPACE L. 187, 193 (2015–
2016).
20 Id. at 196–205.
21 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties art. 31, Dec. 28, 1979, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331
(entered into force Jan. 27, 1980).
22 MARTIN DIXON, TEXTBOOK ON INTERNATIONAL LAW, 161 (7th ed. 2013); R.Y. JENNINGS,
THE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 1–2 (1963).

harden those borders against conquest.

The discrepancy between the idea of appropriation and the idea of
acquisition is not a large one. “To appropriate” means to “take exclusive
possession of,” and “to acquire” means to “get as one’s own.”23 Both of
these imply the idea of ownership, but “to appropriate” is a more active
form in that it requires an affirmative act, whereas “to acquire” includes
possibilities of coming into possession without affirmative action. In other
words, if one finds a painting on the sidewalk and keeps it, that individual
has both acquired and appropriated the painting. Whereas if the painting is
left as an inheritance in a will, it has been acquired but not appropriated.
The distinction may seem subtle, but it is an important one in light of the
text following the ban on national appropriation, which enumerates ways
in which appropriation might happen. This text names three ways in which
appropriation is disallowed.
First, Article II disallows national appropriation by “a claim of
sovereignty.” Under international law, an “apparent display of
sovereignty” is “at the heart of acquisition of sovereignty.”24 Historically,
this concept is linked directly to the idea of planting a flag on new territory
as a way of claiming it for the state, as well as the removal of the previous
sovereign’s flag upon defeating that sovereign. Flag planting was an overt
imperial act through which a state added new territories, and the flag itself
represented not only the sovereign, but also the military force that the
sovereign might employ to defend the claim. Article II then can be read as
outlawing the practice of “claiming sovereignty” in an imperial manner
over newly discovered areas in the outer space environment.
Second, Article II makes clear that national appropriation cannot occur
as the result of use or occupation by a state. Indeed, the international law
system does not recognize simple claims of sovereignty, for these to
convert into territorial acquisition there must be a showing of “effective
occupation,” even in the case of newly discovered uninhabited territory.25
This second Article II prohibition separates the idea of occupation from
territorial acquisition in space. It is important to note that the ban on
“national appropriation” by “occupation or use” is not equivalent to a ban
on occupation or use of outer space and celestial bodies. Indeed, such an
interpretation would destroy the internal logic of the Outer Space Treaty.
Article I of the Outer Space Treaty specifically gives states the right to
“use” outer space and celestial bodies. Further, Article XII acknowledges
that states may have “stations” and “installations” on the Moon and other
celestial bodies, meaning that some form of occupation is indeed allowable
23 WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 18, 106 (Phillip Babcock Gove ed., 3d
ed. 2002).
24 DIXON, supra note 22, at 162.
25 DIXON, supra note 22, at 167.
under the Outer Space Treaty. If Article II is understood as a ban on

occupation and use, then the entire treaty descends into incoherency.
Article II, in this respect, must be understood as banning something very
specific, which is the acquisition of territory over which the sovereign has
full authority that results from occupation or use.
The final prohibition in Article II is the most open ended as it bans
“national appropriation . . . by any other means.”26 This open endedness,
of course, makes it quite difficult to apply.27 It is unclear what might
constitute another means of appropriation.28 Some indication can be found
in the two previous prohibitions, which track with historical methods
under international law for the acquisition of national territory.29
Therefore, it is safe to say that other methods, maybe less likely ones, are
also illegal such as conquest by force or the use of a bilateral treaty. 30 The
problem is that this clause’s indefiniteness leaves open an array of activities
that may or may not constitute an appropriation under Article II.31 For
instance, if a state were to recognize a real property interest in a tract on a
celestial body, would that amount to an Article II appropriation? 32 This
question will be returned to below.
The text does contain an important clue to sorting out Article II in such
a way that it makes sense in relation to the rest of the treaty, which, as
already noted, allows for use and occupation. 33 Astute readers have likely
already been pondering the meaning of the adjective “national” in front of
appropriation.34 Article II does not ban all appropriations, it bans
appropriations of a national character, that is appropriations that link
physical areas of outer space to the legal personhood of the state. 35 The
post 1945 international geography associated legal autonomy with
territory.36 The idea of the United Nations is built on sovereign equality of
independent territories, and the UN Charter is directed at establishing
26 United Nations Treaties and Principles on Outer Space art. II, 2008 U.N.T.S. 11.
27 See Stephen Gorove, Interpreting Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, 37 FORDHAM L. REV.
349, 349 (1969).
28 See Gorove, supra note 27 at 349.
29 See Gorove, supra note 27 at 350.
30 DIXON, supra note 22 at 167–69 (noting that the Article IV ban on weapons of any sort on
celestial bodies confirms the idea that military conquest is banned).

31 DIXON, supra note 22 at 167–69.
32 See Robert Kelly, Note, Nemitz v. United States, a Case of First Impression: Appropriation,
Private Property Rights and Space Law before the Federal Courts of the United States, 30 J. Space L.
297, 305–09 (2004).
33 Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16.
36 THE POLITICS OF GLOBALITY SINCE 1945 2–4 (Rens van Munster & Casper Sylvest, eds.,
2016).
“friendly relations among nations.”37 The post-1945 international

geography is one concerned with solidifying nations by linking them with
distinct territory, and the introduction of the vastness of space served to
destabilize the new balance struck among nations.38 As a result, the non-
appropriation principle is directly connected to the idea of national or state
action through which a state may appropriate part of the vastness of space
into its own legal personality as a state. 39 This is confirmed by Article VI of
the Outer Space Treaty, which holds states responsible for the “national
activities” of non-governmental actors.40 Again, in context the “national”
indicates a nexus with the state and therefore a nexus with national
territory.41 It should be noted that even in the various UNGA resolutions
“appropriation” is preceded by “national” further indicating that the core
concern of the principle is with actions that create a nexus between an area
in outer space and the territorial identity of a state. 42
This section has argued that as a matter of international law, Article II
is concerned with the acquisition of territory by a state and the extension of
sovereignty over that territory. This interpretation places Article II in a
state of coherence with the rest of the treaty, but it does not solve the
deeper problem of the status of property rights by private entities in the
space environment. This is because, while Article II is, in this author’s
opinion, purposely silent on the issue of property, it is not entirely
disconnected from the concept of property. Quite the contrary, in the
international geography deployed by the UN Charter the idea of property
is directly connected to a state’s territory and its sovereign authority over
that territory. This issue will be taken up in the next subsection.
C. Property
It is this author’s anecdotal experience that, in general, when the idea

of space law is first suggested to someone unfamiliar with the concept that
person’s most likely response is: “you mean like who owns the Moon?”
Methodological considerations of this survey aside, this response is
revealing. The law in this case is quickly associated with the question of
the division of spatial territory into legal categorizations. Other topics,
37 U.N. CHARTER, art. 1, para. 2.

38 THE POLITICS OF GLOBALITY SINCE 1945 3 (Rens van Munster & Casper Sylvest, eds.,
2016).
39 Fabio Tronchetti, The Non-Appropriation Principle Under Attack: Using Article II of the
Outer Space Treaty in its Defence, (50th International Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space) 1
(2017).
42 G.A. Res. 72/77, U.N. GAOR, International Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Outer
Space, U.N. Doc. A/Res/72/77 (2017).

such as liability for torts or contracts involved in space activities are

secondary in the general legal imagination. We, as a society, want to know
who owns a place because it is fundamental to our conception of law.43
Ownership is an effect of the legal situation of the territory in which you
are standing, so while the idea of territory is separate from property, the
nature of property is an effect of territorial division.44 This is because as a
matter of contemporary international law, property is a local issue and its
nature changes as an individual moves from one autonomous territory to
another.45
Article II is silent on property. It neither confirms that property rights
may exist, nor does it affirmatively deny such rights.46 This leaves a deep
rift between the concepts of territory and property, which is one of the
reasons that Article II is so hotly debated. 47 This rift exposes the tension
between the post-1945 territorial settlement and the roots of international
law, because it forces the question of whether property rights can exist
without sanction by a state.48 Thus, to truly grasp the meaning of Article II,
it is important to understand that international law itself is a product of the
development of a Western liberal world order. International law emerges
from the European continent in the form of rules that European powers
used to stabilize the region and differentiate it from other regions that
could be subjected to European power.49 Indeed, until 1945, the idea of
“civilized” reigned supreme in determining which territories had rights
under international law and which might be subject to imperial power. 50
Not surprisingly, in the early days Europe was “civilized” and the rest of
the world was not.51 As subsequent iterations of international legal order
43 SCHMITT, supra note 8, at 42. (This is why Schmitt argues that “[l]aw is bound to the
earth and related to the earth.”).
44 See Anna Stilz, Nations, States, and Territory, 121 ETHICS 572, 572 (2011) (To be clear, this
is not a natural or necessary structure. For instance, if the political will was extant, then states
could adopt within international law universal articulations of property rights. The fact that
states did not do this pushes the notion of property to the territorial sovereign to decide.)
45 See John G. Sprankling, The Emergence of International Property Law, 90 N.C. L. REV. 461,
463 (2012).
46 See Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16.
47 See Timothy Justin Trapp, Taking Up Space by Any Other Means: Coming to Terms With the
Nonappropriation Article of the Outer Space Treaty, 4 U. ILL. L. REV. 1681, 1691 (2013).
48 See generally JOHN LOCKE: TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT, SECOND TREATISE 368 Sec.
123 (Peter Laslett ed. 1970) (2d ed. 1698).

49 SCHMITT, supra note 8, at 140; CLARK, supra note 8, at 35; see Manti Koskenniemi,
International Law in Europe: Between Tradition and Renewal, 16 EUR. J. INT’L L. 113, 117 (2005).
50 See Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet, The International Law of Recognition, 24 EUR. J. INT’L. L.
667, 668–69 (2013).
51 See Jessie Szalay, What Was The Enlightenment?, LIVESCIENCE (July 7, 2016),
https://perma.cc/B8H9-KGJ8.
were articulated and more places became “civilized” in a European sense,

the global spatial order was reworked, but within a framework built on
pre-existing Western values.52
Of great importance to the topic at hand, a Western liberal system
meant that natural law theory and specifically a Lockean conception of
property was integrated into the international legal system. John Locke’s
theory of property was that in a state of nature, humans could expend
labor to improve a spatial area and that they thereby gained a natural right
of ownership over that area effectively converting it into property.53
Lockean philosophy is often used to justify property rights in outer space,
and invoked as a natural right that supersedes international law and
Article II specifically.54 This argument assumes that if an individual were
to go into space and exert labor to develop a celestial body, then that
portion over which labor was exerted should become the property of that
individual as a natural right that exists outside the scope of the state. Such
a right has been acknowledged in international law, and there are
numerous nineteenth and early twentieth century cases that acknowledge
such rights in situations when an individual has labored to improve land in
a territory that is res nullius and which is subsequently subject to a claim of
sovereignty.55 This conception casts property as a natural right that
precedes the establishment of sovereignty over territory.
The Lockean argument has three important limitations in its
application to outer space. The first limitation is theoretical. Locke’s
natural right only exists in a state of nature, and it acknowledges that
government becomes a necessary condition for maintaining that right. In
Locke’s state of nature, the natural right is a moral one, but is still subject to
superior force of others. As a result, Locke’s state of nature demands the
establishment of positive property rights protected within society through
governmental functions to ensure that force does not become the true
measure of property rights. Locke’s theory to some extent embraces the
idea that, though property may naturally occur, the state becomes a
necessary entity for its preservation.
The second limitation is the extent to which we can say Lockean theory
is part of the post-1945 international legal system, which is avowedly
positivistic. One of the issues that the negotiators of the UN system had to
account for, to ensure a seamless international geography, was the need to
52 CLARK, supra note 8, at 156.

53 L. Benjamin Ederington, Property as a Natural Institution: The Separation of Property from
Sovereignty in International Law, 13 AM. U. INT’L L. REV. 263, 266–70 (1997).
54 See Gangale, supra note 19, at 189 (noting that “‘national appropriation’ does not in any
way derogate the natural law principle of creating property through the mixing of labor and
soil”).
55 See generally Ederington, supra note 53.
have all global powers be a party to the new system despite their
ideological differences. The problem of non-participation was all too
evident in the failure of the League of Nations. The negotiators needed to
accommodate not just Western liberal political systems, but Marxist
systems as well. Marxist systems, obviously, maintain a fundamentally
different conception of property that rejects Lockean ideals. This is why,
under international law, property is treated as a local issue. Like other
human rights, states were left substantially free to order property within
their borders in any way that was deemed fit by the governing authority.
Property became a function of a state’s domestic law, and to this day all
states maintain different sets of rights applicable to property ownership
within their borders based on the physical characteristics of the territory
and the political ideology of the government. This positivistic turn in
international law uproots Locke as a foundational theory in order to
achieve a seamless global geography through the inclusion of non-Lockean
systems.
The final limitation to the Lockean argument is that Articles II and III
of the Outer Space Treaty serve to eliminate the state of nature. Locke’s
state of nature is best understood as a thought experiment to imagine how
law emerges when there is no law. Locke’s notion was linked to spaces
that sat outside of legal jurisdiction.56 While the space environment is for
the most part untouched by humans and still exists in its “natural state,”
space is not a state of nature in Lockean terms because a governance
system has been imposed on it. Article III of the Outer Space Treaty
effectively extends international law into the space domain, meaning that a
legal regime exists there. Further, Article I and II serve to acknowledge
that states do not view outer space as res nullius, that is as belonging to no
one and therefore subject to conversion into property through labor.
Instead, the Outer Space Treaty, in addition to the non-appropriation
principle, states that space is the “province of all mankind,” which most
commentators have deemed to create a res communis or in more modern
terms a global commons.57 While the use of ancient Roman legal terms has
rightfully been critiqued,58 it is very clear that the legal status of space is
different in kind than the theoretical state of nature as described by Locke.
The problem that results is that states are free to explore and use space,
as are their authorized private actors, but states are unable to appropriate
space “by any other means.” This results in significant limitations on a
56 See SCHMITT, supra note 8, at 97.

57 See LACHS, supra note 8, at 43–46. But see Henry Hertzfeld, Brian Weeden & Christopher
D. Johnson, How Simple Terms Mislead Us: The Pitfalls of Thinking About Outer Space as a
Commons (58th IISL Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space) 533, 534 (2015).
58 PHILIP DE MAN, EXCLUSIVE USE IN AN INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENT: THE MEANING OF THE
NON-APPROPRIATION PRINCIPLE FOR SPACE RESOURCE EXPLOITATION 18–33 (2016).

state’s ability to protect property rights that could result from such use. If
a state were to sanction a private claim for real property in space, it could
amount to an assertion of sovereignty over the territory containing the
claimed property. Thus, claims of real property that assert exclusive
control over a spatial territory in space are likely prohibited by Article II,
due to the fact that state parties are disallowed from enforcing such rights.
This should not be surprising as similar claims to the high seas, deep
seabed, or Antarctica would have similar difficulties due to a state’s
inability to enforce those rights. This however, is not the end of the story,
because states can and do recognize property rights in movable property
that is attained outside its borders and specifically from global commons.
While each of the above mentioned global commons excludes the
possibility of claims for real property, each has a unique regime for the
exploitation of the resources found within. The Antarctic regime bans all
commercial use, whereas the deep seabed regime establishes an
international organization for the management of rights over extracted
resources. The high seas regime allows private actors to extract resources at
will, as long as they are in compliance of the laws of their local flag state
(which often incorporate international obligations), and gain direct
property rights over those resources, namely fish. This illustrates that
under international law, the legal recognition of rights in extracted
resources is a possibility in a global commons as part of the international
geography. The question is whether Article II allows such recognition. The
answer to this is murky at best due to the ambiguous language of the Outer
Space Treaty. However, we can look to state practice to see how states are
interpreting their obligations under Article II.
II. Space Property in State Practice
State practice on the nature of property rights in space is scant. Few

states have the technological capability simply to make it to celestial bodies
much less to maintain activities or return resources. The record is not
devoid of state practice, though. There are hints at how states interpret
their obligations under Article II that help to clear up some of its
ambiguous language. This practice falls into the following categories:
direct state action in space relating to territory and resources, private
claims to real property in space, and private ownership of extracted
celestial material.
A. States in Space
Three states have effectively gone to celestial bodies and returned with
celestial material from space to Earth: the United States, the Soviet Union,
and Japan. Each of these states’ actions constitute state practice under
Article II. This section will address two aspects of these missions: first, the
way that states behaved in relation to possible territorial claims made by
their landings; and second, the way in which states have behaved in
relation to the extracted portions of those celestial bodies.
1. Territorial Claims
To be clear, no state has ever claimed any part of a celestial body as its
sovereign territory. The lack of these types of claims is an important
indicator of the content of Article II, but analysis should not stop there as
there is definite nuance to the way in which states, and specifically the
United States, have treated their interactions with celestial bodies.
In 1959, the Soviet Union became the first state to launch a spacecraft
that reached the surface of the moon, Luna-2. This craft engaged in
scientific experiments, but a notable aspect of it was that it contained a
spherical device with pendants or medallions that were intended to scatter
on the surface of the Moon upon impact, presuming they survived the
impact. These medallions contained the state symbol of the USSR, and the
words “USSR September 1959” (in Russian of course).59 The placement of a
state symbol on the Lunar surface bears significant resemblance to imperial
practice of planting a flag, a symbol of state sovereignty, on newly
discovered territory as an assertion of a state’s rights to that territory.
However, there is no indication that the Soviet Union ever asserted such
rights to the territory touched by these medallions. At the time, Luna-2 was
painted as a victory for the Soviet space program, which was quickly
racking up “firsts” in space much to the United States’ dismay. Days after
the Luna-2 impact, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev landed in the United
States for a state visit. Though tensions were high between the Cold War
leaders, Khrushchev presented President Eisenhower with a replica of the
Luna-2 sphere, as both a sign of international friendship and a Cold War
jab.60 It should also be noted that the Soviet Union, upon signing the Outer
Space Treaty made no mention of any claim effectuated by the Luna-2
landing, and its acceptance of the treaty can be seen as disclaiming any
residual claims that it may have retained.
The United States became the first nation to land a human on the Moon
in 1969 with its Apollo 11 mission. Apollo 11 astronauts, and those of the
subsequent Apollo missions, planted a United States flag on the surface of
the Moon. Similar to Luna-2, this act has all the trappings of traditional
imperial claims to newly discovered territory. In fact, the Apollo missions
amplify this through the use of an actual flag, which carries specific
significance when associated with a sovereign power, and also through the
accompanying human presence, which could be argued to give more
59 Richard Cavendish, The Soviet Union is First to the Moon, HISTORY TODAY (Sept. 9, 2009),
https://perma.cc/3VPY-WRKB; Becky Ferreira, The Other First Moon Landing, MOTHERBOARD
(Sept. 14, 2009), https://perma.cc/XXY9-6W6H?type=image.
60 Ferreira, supra note 59.
substance to a possible claim than a spacecraft alone. Unlike Luna-2, the

Moon landing occurred in the wake of the Outer Space Treaty, and the
United States at the time was keen to ensure that it complied with the
treaty in order to maintain international peace and security. As a result,
each of the Apollo landers, which remained on the lunar surface along with
the flags they carried, had a plaque attached to them that served to
disclaim any notion of conquest by the United States. The Apollo 11
placard specifically did this stating: “Here men from the planet Earth first
set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all
mankind.”61
There are two important aspects to this placard. First, it characterizes
the astronauts simply as “men” rather than as representatives of a specific
sovereign.62 Second, it echoes the notion found throughout international
space law that space should be used for peace and for the benefit of all
humankind. What this placard serves to do is represent the actions of the
Apollo astronauts as being on the behalf of the entire global population.
While the United States certainly wanted its mark on that landing, thus the
flag, the words that it used to describe the landing did not assert any claim
of sovereignty. This is of course echoed by Neil Armstrong’s words,
broadcast internationally, that this was “one small step for man, one giant
leap for mankind.”
What can be gathered from the actions of these two states is that claims
of an imperial nature, that is those made through discovery of new
territory in space, do not fall within the confines of that which is allowed
by Article II. This of course tracks with the anti-imperial language that
these two superpowers were able to agree on when negotiating the Outer
Space Treaty.
There is one small coda that should be included here. In 1976, eight
equatorial countries issued the Bogata Declaration as a protest to what they
felt was an inequitable division of the Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO). 63 The
declaration stated that each of the countries claimed sovereignty over the
portion of the GEO orbit that was directly above their territory. This claim
was built on the idea that GEO is a natural resource, and that its unique
physical characteristics linked it directly to the territory below. Colombia
went so far as to include this claim in its Constitution. 64 In general, the
61 Apollo 11 Plaque Left on the Moon, NASA, https://perma.cc/U7FM-RWZE (last visited Sept.
7, 2019).
62 See Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16, art. V (tracking with the Outer Space Treaty,
which declares Astronauts to be “envoys of mankind” rather than envoys of their respective
states).
63 See Declaration of the First Meeting of Equatorial Countries, JAXA,
https://perma.cc/C9SB-FYFZ (last visited Oct. 27, 2017).
64 COLOM. CONST. art. 101.
international community has never recognized these claims. Additionally,

all of these states are participants in the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU), which coordinates GEO usage, five are state parties to the
Outer Space Treaty, and two more have signed but not ratified the Outer
Space Treaty.65 Also of note is that the ITU was reorganized in the early
1990s in part to better address the claims of developing nations to access to
telecommunications including GEO.66 As a result, the Bogota Declaration
is likely now little more than a historical footnote, and its rejection by the
international community indicates a rejection of territorial claims in space.
2. Sample Return
There are three examples of states engaging in sample return missions.

A sample return mission is a mission that endeavors to collect matter from
space and return it to the surface of the Earth.
The first of these missions was Apollo 11, and each subsequent Apollo
mission returned to the surface of the Earth with lunar material.67
Interestingly, the Apollo 11 astronauts filled out a customs form
acknowledging the importation of the material.68 The lunar samples that
were returned, are administered by NASA. In addition to research done by
the United States with these samples, the United States distributed these
samples to other states for the purposes of scientific research and also as
diplomatic gifts. Both of these uses of the lunar samples can be argued to
support the goal of using space for the benefit of humankind, and they
have been unprotested.
Shortly, after Apollo 11, the Soviet Union also successfully returned
lunar samples using the robotic Luna-20 mission, the U.S.S.R.’s first of three
sample return missions. Similar to U.S. practice, these samples were
studied by the Soviet Union and distributed to other states for scientific
study.69 Significantly, the United States and the U.S.S.R. exchanged lunar
samples as a way to mark an expansion of cooperation between the two
states.70 The U.S. representative in this exchange stated that, “[a]lthough
65 Status of International Agreements Relating to Activities in Outer Space as at 1 January 2017,
U.N. Doc. A/AC.105/C.2/2017/CRP.7 (Mar. 28, 2017).

66 See George A. Codding Jr., The International Telecommunications Union: 130 Years of
Telecommunications Regulation, 23 DENV. J. INT’L L. & POL’Y 501, 508 (1994).
67 Sarah Coffey, Establishing a Legal Framework for Property Rights to Natural Resources in
Outer Space, 41 CASE W. RES. J. INT’L L. 119, 126 (2009) (pointing out that “over six missions
Apollo returned 842 lbs. of material”).
68 Apollo 11 General Declaration, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PATROL (July 24, 1969),
https://perma.cc/K589-ZDKE.
69 See Apollo Sample Catalogues, LUNAR AND PLANETARY INST. (Dec. 3, 1978),
https://perma.cc/9EQ5-4K8C.
70 U.S. and Soviet Exchange Lunar Soil to Mark Pact, N.Y. TIMES (June 11, 1971),
https://perma.cc/JQY4-GSG8.
the quantity of material is small . . . its significance is very great.”71 Unlike

the Apollo samples, Soviet lunar samples have been offered for sale on the
private market. In 1993, 0.2 grams of the Luna-16 lunar sample was sold by
the Soviet government through the auction house Sotheby’s.72
Finally, in 2003 Japan launched its Haybusa mission. This mission flew
to a near-Earth asteroid, collected samples, and returned to the surface of
the Earth in 2010.73 There were many issues with this mission and the
sample return was not as robust as expected, but Japan confirmed that
particulate matter from the asteroid was returned by the craft. The
Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) administers these samples for scientific
research, and requires that any samples delivered for this purpose be
returned to JAXA.74 JAXA makes clear through its frequently asked
questions, the ownership of these samples is not transferred by virtue of a
project being selected to do research:
Q6. Will I own distributed samples?
A6. Definitely NO. Samples belong to JAXA. Allocated sample
must be returned to the Curator as soon as the proposed
investigation is completed. Exceptions are those investigations
that consume samples, but this fact needs to be mentioned clearly
in the proposal.75
Japan has not distributed these samples widely, likely based on the
small amount that was collected, but it has partnered with NASA and
transferred some of the particle samples to NASA for research. 76
Three important aspects of state practice in regards to samples from
celestial bodies should be noted. The first is that no state has ever objected
to another state engaging in a sample return mission, or challenged another
state’s ability to effectively own and control these samples. Second, these
samples may definitely be used in ways that provide a “benefit to all
mankind.” These benefits can flow through scientific research or through
gains in international peace and security through diplomatic uses. Finally,
71 Id.
72 Mike Bosworth, What Has Happened to NASA’s Missing Rocks?, BBC (Feb. 20, 2012),
https://perma.cc/9JBF-2SPZ; see, e.g., Douglas Martin, Space Artifacts of Soviets Soar at a $7
Million Auction, N.Y. TIMES (Dec. 12, 1993), https://perma.cc/M733-LAR8 (commenting that
interestingly, this same auction saw the Soviet government sell title to a lunar rover that was
still on the surface of the Moon.).
73 Hayabusa Asteroid Itokawa Samples, NASA, https://perma.cc/4B4L-AZTV (last visited Oct.
27, 2017).
74 Terms and Conditions for the International Announcement of Opportunity for Hayabusa Sample
Investigation, JAXA https://perma.cc/J2H6-T9MV (last visited Sept. 7, 2019).
75 FAQs, JAXA, https://perma.cc/4T6R-Z953 (last visited Sept. 7, 2019).
76 Hayabusa Sample Investigator’s Guidebook: For the International Announcement of
Opportunity, JAXA (May 8, 2017), https://perma.cc/4PQ8-JBEL.

there is at least one example of state practice in which a state has used a
sample for commercial gain. As a result, we can say that state practice
clearly indicates that Article II does not prohibit states from extracting
material from celestial bodies, and that states seem to have some set of
rights to dispose of that material as they see fit.
B. Private Claims to Celestial Bodies
There have been numerous attempts by individuals and commercial

entities to claim all or part of particular celestial bodies as real property.
Most of these attempts have been little more than publicity stunts, but
many have sought to employ clever mechanisms to assert these rights by
getting a state to somehow endorse the claims. These claimants usually
argue that though Article II bars states from claiming territory, it does not
bar a private individual from owning territory. This argument is rooted in
a Lockean conception of property as a human right that exists as a function
of natural law rather than domestic state governance. Interestingly though,
the tactics of these claimants make explicit the role of the positive local law
of the state as the arbiter of what can and cannot be private property. This
puts their natural law claims into an untenable feedback loop that requires
positive law to establish property rights.
There are several such examples of these attempts. One of the most
prominent is Dennis Hope’s Lunar Embassy, which claims to sell plots on
the Moon and other celestial bodies to its customers. The Lunar Embassy
web page claims that it is “the only company on Earth with the legal right
to sell land in outer space period.”77 This legal right is based on fairly
dubious ground. According to the Lunar Embassy:
Well, in 1980, a very bright, young and handsome Mr. Dennis
Hope, went to his local US Governmental Office for claim
registries, the San Francisco County Seat, and made a claim for
the entire lunar surface, as well as the surface of all the other
eight planets of our solar system and their moons (except Earth
and the sun). Obviously, he was at first taken for a crackpot,
until, 3 supervisors, 2 Floors and 5 hours later, the main
supervisor accepted, and registered his claim.78
There is not any additional information as to what specific type of

claim is registered, but what can be gathered from this statement is that
Hope bases the validity of his claim on the basis of its registration by a
municipal bureaucrat, which he argues rises to the level of state
recognition. Further, Hope sent letters to the U.S.S.R. and the UN
77 Dennis M. Hope, What’s It All About?, LUNAR EMBASSY, https://perma.cc/J6GJ-KQ9K (last

visited Sept. 7, 2019).
78 Dennis M. Hope, Frequently Asked Questions, LUNAR EMBASSY, https://perma.cc/54TN-
HZWD (last visited Aug. 13, 2018).

registering his claim and his intent to own these surfaces. Hope’s letters
never received formal responses, and therefore he operates as if they are
uncontested. It should be noted that the Chinese government has blocked
the company from operating in China on the basis that it is fraudulent.79
A second case is that of Nemitz v. United States. Nemitz, the plaintiff
in this case, filed a security interest, under the California Uniform
Commercial Code, in the asteroid Eros. Then, when NASA landed a probe
on the asteroid, Nemitz sent NASA a bill for parking asserting that the
security interest gave him property rights in the asteroid. The bill itself
was minimal, but Nemitz’s goal was recognition rather than riches.80
NASA refused to recognize the claim by Nemitz, and eventually the matter
was referred to the State Department.81 The State Department denied
Nemitz’s claim based on Article II, stating “In the view of the Department,
private ownership of an asteroid is precluded by Article II of the Treaty on
Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of
Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. Accordingly,
we have concluded that your claim is without legal basis.”82 Nemitz then
filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Nevada. This claim
was dismissed by the court for failure to state a claim. Specifically, the
Court stated that registration of a security interest does not create
“property interests.”83 Nemitz appealed to the 9th Circuit, which upheld
the lower court without a written opinion.84
There are other such examples of these types of claims. For instance, in
the early 1980s Lamar Savings and Loan Association “filed a request with
the Texas savings and loan commissioner to acquire permission to open a
branch office on the Moon.”85 This request would ultimately be rejected.
While all of these claims tend to philosophically support the idea of
property as a fundamental human right, they all in some way attempt to
get the claims recognized by the government through the use of local rules.
This reveals the thinness of appeals to natural law for the establishment of
such claims, in that each claimant recognizes the need for positive legal
recognition to vindicate their claims. Indeed, the central problem with
using these cases as precedent, either for or against property rights, is that
79 Chinese Lunar Land Sale a Great Idea but Illegal Says Government, SPACE DAILY (Dec. 7,
2005), https://perma.cc/XU4E-RYMD.
80 See generally, The Eros Project for Space Property Law, EROS PROJECT,
https://perma.cc/A6SP-NT8M (last visited Sept. 7, 2019).
81 See Kelly, supra note 32, at 298.
82 OrbDev Appeals to State Dept. For Eros Rent Ruling, SPACE DAILY (Aug. 28, 2003),
https://perma.cc/PVA8-HNM2.
83 Order Granting Defs. Mot. to Dismiss, 2, April 27, 2004, CV-N-03-0599-HDM(RAM).
84 Appellate Court, EROS PROJECT, https://perma.cc/UV8H-E5WB (last visited Sept. 6, 2019).
85 NATHAN C. GOLDMAN, AMERICAN SPACE LAW: INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC 142–43
(2d ed. 1988).

these claimants universally lack any sort of possession, which the Nemitz
court found to be dispositive. To circumvent the possession issue, another
would-be claimant has been shooting a laser beam at Mars for years. He
argues that this could give him a “legitimate claim” to the Martian surface
based on the physical contact of the laser beam with Mars, which is cast as
Lockean labor that adds value to the Martian surface by helping to spark
the terraforming process.86 What all of these claims lack though, is a clear
nexus between the lex loci being used to justify the claim and the celestial
body being claimed. This is clearly an issue of sovereignty. Recognition
that someone has made a claim through procedural registration with a
governmental body is quite different from a governmental body having
territorial jurisdiction over that body, which is a necessary precursor to
granting real property rights.
C. Private Ownership of Celestial Material
While both NASA and JAXA claim sole ownership of their

extraterrestrial samples, there are several cases in which samples have
entered into private hands, including the Soviet sale mentioned above.
This has not yet been the case with any of JAXA’s samples, but NASA has
numerous samples of which the whereabouts are unknown. Many of the
lost Moon rocks are diplomatic gifts that the United States sent to world
leaders.87 Interestingly, NASA has aggressively pursued claims of
ownership when it finds private parties in possession of lunar samples.
Recently, for example, a NASA investigator was subjected to a lawsuit over
a sting operation in which he detained and interrogated a 74-year-old
widow of a NASA engineer for suspected theft of stolen property.88
There are two important U.S. cases on whether individuals can own
and sell lunar samples that are from the U.S. Apollo missions, over which
NASA maintains that it has title. The first case is United States v. One Lucite
Ball Containing Lunar Material.89 In this case, a U.S. citizen travelled to
Honduras and purchased one of the diplomatic gifts made from Apollo
lunar samples. The gift was a plaque with the lunar sample inside a lucite
ball and the flag of Honduras. It was being offered for sale by a Honduran
86 FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions . . . and More, MARS FOR SALE, https://perma.cc/TL3Y-
KYGS (last visited Nov. 5, 2017) (stating that claimant is using his sale of Mars to build
support for ensuring the future usefulness of the Outer Space Treaty); Nick Whigham, Can
One Man’s Strange Claim to Ownership of Land on Mars Revamp International Space Law?, NEWS
LIMITED (July 18, 2017, 1:12 PM), https://perma.cc/3N7S-SDVY.
87 Mark Bosworth, What Has Happened to Nasa's Missing Moon Rocks?, BBC, (Feb. 20, 2012),
https://perma.cc/Q4VD-QJK9.
88 Fred Bardbash, NASA ‘Sting’ Operation Against 74-year-old Widow of Apollo Engineer
Draws Court Rebuke, WASH. POST (Apr. 14, 2017), https://perma.cc/LTV9-R8WS?type=image.

89 United States v. One Lucite Ball, 252 F. Supp. 2d 1367, 1372 (S.D. Fla. 2003).
general. The purchaser then sought to sell the sample to an undercover

NASA investigator and the sample was subsequently seized. In the
aftermath, the Honduran government requested the return of the sample
asserting ownership rights. The court held that “[w]hen President Lopez
Arellano accepted the gift on behalf of the Honduran government and
people and placed it in the Presidential Palace, the lunar rock and plaque
became part of the patrimony of the Republic of Honduras.”90 The court
goes on to apply Honduran law and concludes that neither the seller nor
the buyer in this case could have gained good title since the Honduran
government never authorized the transfer of the sample. The court does
not reach the question of whether a purchaser with good title could then
own the sample. However, this decision does indicate that the transfer of
title to Honduras means that such a sale would be governed by the lex loci,
which could allow for such a transfer.
The second case of interest is the recent United States v. Ary.91 In this
case, Nancy Carlson was a private citizen who bought a lunar sample
return bag through a United States forfeiture proceeding. 92 The bag was
previously stolen from a museum and, after three years, was mistakenly
auctioned off with other property confiscated by the U.S. Marshall Service.
The Plaintiff then had the bag tested, which revealed that it did indeed
contain particulate lunar material. NASA then moved to set aside the
original forfeiture sale of the bag, claiming that the bag was sold in error
and that NASA was not notified of the sale. 93 It argued that “NASA’s
policy and practice is not to transfer ownership of lunar material to any
private individual.”94 The Plaintiff argued that NASA had been involved
in the forfeiture proceedings and at the least had constructive notice of the
sale, and that title to the bag vested in the U.S. Government, rather than
NASA specifically, and therefore the sale was a proper transfer of title.95
The court concluded that while NASA lacked notice, it had no remedy
against the Plaintiff as a bona fide purchaser:
By statute, the interest of a former owner is declared to be
extinguished upon forfeiture, as the lack of a timely petition in
the forfeiture proceeding means that “the United States shall
have clear title to property that is the subject of the order of
forfeiture and may warrant good title to any subsequent
purchaser or transferee.” 21 U.S.C. § 853(n)(6). Under this
provision, legal title to the bag passed to the United States. Title
was subsequently conveyed to Ms. Carlson upon completion of
90 Id. at 1373.
91 United States v. Ary, 224 F.Supp.3d 1186, 1186 (D. Kan. 2016).
92 Id. at 1190.
93 Id. at 1190–91.
94 Id. at 1190.
95 Id. at 1190–91.
the auction sale.96
According to the court, to the extent that NASA was deprived of its
property through lack of notice, its remedy was against the United States
directly. While the lunar material was not at the heart of the court’s
decision in this case, it does indicate that the United States is authorized to
sell this material, which is consistent with the Soviet sale of lunar material.
Again, it should be noted that the court applies the lex loci in making its
decision on the transfer of title.
While these decisions are not conclusive on the notion of private
ownership of extracted extraterrestrial material, they both indicate that the
state has the ability to dispose of such material through a commercial sale,
and that the subsequent private ownership can be legal depending on the
local law of the state.
III. New Local Rules
This array of state practice brings us back to the inherent ambiguity of

the Outer Space Treaty. If space is to be “used” under Article I, and states
can authorize “nongovernmental” actors under Article VI, but they cannot
claim space and other celestial bodies as territory, then the question
remains whether commercial exploitation of resources is possible under the
Outer Space Treaty. Indeed, it is exactly this ambiguity that the failed
Moon Agreement attempted to clarify by providing for an international
system to govern resource extraction.97 Interestingly, one of the things that
led to the failure of the Moon Agreement was opposition within the U.S. by
“advocates of free enterprise in space” who “argued that the treaty would
increase the entrepreneur’s estimate of risk and stifle investment and
development in space.”98 However, thirty years later, advocates of free
enterprise have begun to advocate for clear rules governing resource
extraction. To date, two states, the United States and Luxembourg, have
responded to this new call for regulatory certainty.
Before looking at those rules, let us first engage with a quick recap of
how property rights fit into the international legal system. As argued in
Section II, Article II is primarily about the concept of territory and fitting a
new spatial reality, i.e. human space exploration, into the freshly
established international law system and its imagined geography or world-
scale order.99 While the international law system established after WWII
does recognize “the right to own property alone as well as in association
96 Id. at 1193.
97 See Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial
Bodies art. 11, July 11, 1984, 18 I.L.M 1434 (explaining the Moon Agreement has entered into
force, it has a low number of ratifications and none from major space powers).
98 GOLDMAN, supra note 66, at 26.
99 See Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16.
with others,”100 this right, like most other human rights, is subject to local
governance within a territory.101 The right to own property then changes
as one crosses borders and enters new political and legal systems. 102 This is
an important feature within the international legal system because it made
it possible for states with divergent ideologies to come together as
sovereign equals.103 Territory is absolute, but property is subject to local
rules rather than international rules.104 Indeed, the state practice above,
and in particular the One Lucite Ball case, places lex loci rules as primary in
making determinations about property.105 In order for local rules to be
applied, there needs to be some nexus between the territory in which those
rules govern and the property at question.106 As a result, claims over real
property in outer space lack true ratification by governments, because they
exist outside the territorial jurisdiction of the state; whereas, claims over
extraterrestrial material that has been transported into the territory of the
state, thereby creating a nexus, will be resolved through local rules.107
Currently, multiple commercial entities are attempting to raise the
necessary capital to engage in transportation to and mining of celestial
bodies.108 These initiatives are high risk for investors and potentially offer
a high return on the investment, but in light of Article II some investors are
reluctant to put their money in these ventures without some clarity as to
whether that investment will be protected legally.109 In other words,
investors are concerned with whether these companies can own and
therefore dispose of the resources they extract under the lex loci.110 Both the
United States and Luxembourg have passed legislation that is intended to
make these investors feel secure in the legal rights to the extracted
resources.111
100 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 17, Dec. 10, 1948, https://perma.cc/LXH2-
4ZGC.
101 See United Nations General Assembly, Role of Local Government in the Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights – Final Report of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee,
Thirtieth Session, Before the Human Rights Council, HRC 30/49, 3, 7–9 (2015).
102 See generally MICHELE GRAZIADEI & LIONEL SMITH, COMPARATIVE PROPERTY LAW 193–95
(2017).
103 See Peter Rutledge, Toward a Functional Approach to Sovereign Equality, 53 VA. J. INT’L L.
181, 186 (2012).
104 See generally GRAZIADEI & SMITH, supra note 102, at 193–95.
105 United States v. One Lucite Ball, 252 F. Supp. 2d 1367, 1372 (S.D. Fla. 2003).
106 See id.
107 See id.
108 Benjamin Sutherland, Space Exploration Will Open Up in 2018, STEEMIT, https://perma.cc/
YGC3-GXNU (last visited Sept. 7, 2019).

109 See generally Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16, art. II.
110 See Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16, art. II.
111 See generally U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, Pub. L. No. 114–90,
The United States passed the first of these laws in December 2015 as
part of the Commercial Space Flight Competitiveness Act.112 Title IV of this
legislation states that
A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an
asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be
entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained,
including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid
resource or space resource obtained in accordance with
applicable law, including the international obligations of the
United States.113
The law further states that “the United States does not thereby assert
sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the
ownership of, any celestial body,” thereby disclaiming such exploitation as
an appropriation inconsistent with Article II.114
Luxembourg, as part of a strategy to attract the space industry to its
territory, followed suit passing a law in summer 2017.115 This law states
that “Les ressources de l’espace sont susceptibles d’appropriation.”116 The
law then goes on to say that such appropriation must comply with
Luxembourg’s international obligations: “L’exploitant agréé ne peut
exercer l’activité visée au paragraphe 1 er qu’en conformité avec les
conditions de son agrément et les obligations internationales du
Luxembourg.”117 While the Luxembourg legislation does use the word
“appropriation” to describe the act that it is making legal, it also uses a
disclaimer about the international obligations of the state. 118 The
Luxembourg law goes further than the U.S. law in that the bulk of its text
describes the nature of the authorization that Luxembourg will grant for
these activities.119
129 Stat. 704, (2015); Loi du 20 juillet 2017 sur l’exploration et l’utilisation des ressources de l’espace,
art. 1, LE GOUVERNEMENT DU GRAND-DUCHÉ DE LUX., https://perma.cc/558C-FH2N (last
visited Sept. 7 2019).
112 See generally U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, Pub. L. No. 114–90,
129 Stat. 704, (2015).

113 Id. at 721.
114 Id. at 722.
115 Laurent Shummer & Blazej Gladysz, Luxembourg Law on the Exploration and Use of Space
Resources Entered Into Force, ARENDT (Aug. 2, 2017), https://perma.cc/BJ3B-5LSU.

116 Loi du 20 juillet 2017 sur l’exploration et l’utilisation des ressources de l’espace, art. 1, LE
GOUVERNEMENT DU GRAND-DUCHÉ DE LUX., https://perma.cc/558C-FH2N (last visited Sept. 6,

2018) (translating to “space resources are capable of being appropriated”).
117 Id. art. 2(3) (translated to “the authorised operator may only carry out the activity
referred to in paragraph 1 in accordance with the conditions of the authorisation and the
international obligations of Luxembourg”).
118 Gov’t of the Grand Duchy of Lux., Draft Law on the Exploration and Use of Space
Resources, SPACERESOURCES.LU, https://perma.cc/XU9F-HFRM (last visited Sept. 7, 2019).

119 Compare, Gen. Assemb. Res. 1721, U.N. GAOR, 16th Sess., Supp. 17, at 6, U.N. Doc.
What is significant about both of these laws is that they are narrowly
tailored to only grant rights to the extracted resources. 120 Neither law
implies that a commercial entity will gain rights similar to “real property”
rights in the area of their extraction operations, because real property is
directly correlated to the territory in which it sits.121 Indeed, both laws
explicitly note that the international obligations of the state will be a
limitation on an entity’s ability to claim the property rights over the
extracted resources, though the U.S. articulation of this principle is much
stronger.122 These laws create a nexus between the state and the chattel
property in question through personal jurisdiction rather than territorial
jurisdiction.123 The U.S. law applies to U.S. citizens and the Luxembourg
law applies to entities authorized by the state. 124 This allows the two states
to avoid the restrictions of Article II by not asserting their jurisdiction in
such a way that implies sovereignty over the area of a celestial body, while
at the same time confirming that a state may authorize a non-governmental
entity to use space in accordance with Articles I and VI of the Outer Space
Treaty.
These laws have stirred much debate among academics as to their
legality under the Outer Space Treaty.125 Despite the criticism, there is
growing consensus that these laws represent, at a minimum, valid possible
interpretations of Article II obligations.126 In fact, such an interpretation is
consistent with the Russian sale of Lunar material, as well as the
recognition in One Lucite Ball that the lex loci applies to the disposal of
tangible property.127 Whether or not these interpretations become an
internationally accepted standard is yet to be seen, but surely more states
A/RES/1721(XVI) (1961), with U.S. Space Exploration Policy, Exec. Directive No. 31, N.S.P.D.
(Jan. 14, 2004).
120 See U.S. Space Exploration Policy, Exec. Directive No. 31, N.S.P.D. (Jan. 14, 2004).
121 Id.
122 Id.
123 See generally P. J. Blount, Jurisdiction in Outer Space: Challenges of Private Individuals in
Space, 33 J. SPACE L. 299 (2007); Frans von der Dunk, Effective Exercise of ‘In-space Jurisdiction’:
The US Approach and the Problems it is Facing, 40 J. SPACE L. 147 (2015) (discussing jurisdiction
in outer space).
124 See U.S. Space Exploration Policy, Exec. Directive No. 31, N.S.P.D. (Jan. 14, 2004).
125 Blount and Robison, supra note 10, at 161–62; Thierry Labro,
Luxembourg Space Exploration Laws Criticised, LUX. TIMES (Barbara Tasch, trans. Aug. 2, 2017),
https://perma.cc/F6XM-ZCEZ.
126 See Position Paper on Space Resource Mining, INT’L INST. OF SPACE LAW, 1–3 (Dec. 20, 2015),
https://perma.cc/JUQ3-QXK9.
127 See generally U.S. v. One Lucite Ball Containing Lunar Material, 252 F.Supp.2d 1367
(S.D. Fla. 2003) (holding the government’s evidence established probable cause that the moon
rock and display plaque were stolen from the Republic of Honduras and then introduced into
the United States).
will begin to pass laws on space resources.128

If international consensus supports that states may authorize non-
governmental entities, then numerous challenges are on the horizon.129
This is especially so in light of the rudimentary nature of these laws.130 The
U.S. law is devoid of any details on authorization or safety for these
entities, and while the Luxembourgish law addresses authorization, it is
more concerned with the financial solvency of the authorized entity rather
than details about how such activities shall be carried out.131 While entities
will likely be controlled by local rules rather than international rules, the
idea of international coordination for safety is one that states should begin
to take quite seriously.132 One of the central goals of the Outer Space Treaty
is to avoid conflict through the facilitation of communication and
coordination among states to lessen the risk of accidents or conflicts in
space.133 Article VI requires that states keep close tabs on their non-
governmental actors due to the strategic nature of the space
environment.134 While the commercial exploitation of space should not be
unnecessarily hampered, it is important to remember that commercial
exploitation is not a primary goal of the treaty regime, which is squarely
focused on international peace and security. 135 As a result, states should be
aware of the risk of a “race to the bottom” in the enactment of such laws,
similar to the flags of convenience problem on the high seas. 136 Safety,
security, and sustainability for all space actors are all critical notions that
states should give serious thought to when enacting local rules.137
In order to preserve space for peaceful purposes as new space activities
emerge, states will need to establish mechanisms to ensure that risk of
harmful interference is minimized.138 Indeed, there is precedent for such
128 See generally id.

129 See Labro, supra note 125.
130 See Labro, supra note 125.
131 A Legal Framework for Space Exploration, GRAND DUCHY OF LUX., (July 13, 2017),
https://perma.cc/286V-D9EX.
132 See Luxembourg Set to Become Europe’s Commercial Space Exploration Hub with New Space
Law, OGIER, (Aug. 3, 2017), https://perma.cc/U9CR-9D6E.

133 See Blount, supra note 123, at 310.
Law, supra note 132.

Law, supra note 132.

138 See Sharing the Sky – ITU’s Role in Managing Satellite and Orbit Spectrum Resources, INT’L
TELECOMM. UNION, https://perma.cc/9UKU-7AX9 (last visited Sept. 7, 2019) [hereinafter
Sharing the Sky].
mechanisms in the ITU management of the geosynchronous orbit (GEO). 139

This system is not a full blown legal system, but it has provided a reliable
mechanism for states to give notice of their activities in GEO.140 This
regime does not provide “rights” to the orbit, but instead gives states the
ability to make a planned use known to the international community so
that other states can plan their space activities accordingly.141 While a
regime such as that found in the Moon Agreement is politically untenable
at this time, a system that allows states to coordinate based on notice and
registration could be an effective way to ensure that space remains conflict
free.142
CONCLUSION: SPACE FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL
One of the core values embedded in the international space law regime
is that states should ensure that space is used for the benefit of all. While
this value likely rises to the level of customary international law, it is an
amorphous obligation that is an aspirational value rather than a hard legal
obligation. The principle, however, should not be minimized as new space
activities, including space resource extraction, emerge. Rather, states
should continue to ensure that even commercial uses of space provide
benefits to the global population. Commercial entities should not be
prohibited from making a profit from the use and exploration of space, but
the space regime treats space as a very different sort of place than those
found terrestrially. It would be folly to swing the pendulum too far in
favor of commercial profit. This could allow private entities to destabilize
the strategic space environment, which would destabilize the terrestrial
security environment. The result would be a use of space for the detriment
of all humankind.
This is not to say that there is a need to go as far as equitable sharing of
profits from resources as envisioned in the Moon Agreement. While that
would certainly be one way to accomplish using space for the benefit of all,
it is one that might overly hinder commercial exploitation and the failure of
the Moon Agreement shows that there is no political will to establish such
a system. Through the Outer Space Treaty, states have agreed to hold
themselves to a higher standard than they do terrestrially in order to serve
the entire human population. In the adoption of local rules for new space
activities, states have a moral and legal obligation to hold their
nongovernmental actors to similar standards. While Article VI makes clear
139 See Guilnem Penent, Governing the Geostationary Orbit: Orbital Slots and Spectrum Use in
an Era of Interference, IFRI (Jan. 20, 2014), https://perma.cc/XRM8-SCYB.

140 See Sharing the Sky, supra note 138.
141 See Sharing the Sky, supra note 138.
142 See Sharing the Sky supra note 138.
that states may authorize the use of space by non-governmental actors, that
use is still governed by Article I, which requires the use to be “for the
benefit of all countries.” As resource extraction develops, Article II and the
question of property rights does not pose the biggest challenge. Instead,
the biggest challenge is avoiding a profit driven race to the bottom which
would gut the underlying values on which the international community
based the space regime.

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Outer Space and International

Geography: Article II and the Shape of

* Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of Law, Economics, and Finance, University of

I. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon

This is the first time that a UNGA resolution refers to “principles”

A/RES/1721 (XVI) (1961).

https://perma.cc/4927-DS7T (last updated June 4, 2019).

non-appropriation, instead of being a critical principle in international

Before jumping into the specifics of the non-appropriation principle, it

7 See SASKIA SASSEN, TERRITORY, AUTHORITY, RIGHTS: FROM MEDIEVAL TO GLOBAL

shapes the contours of global order. This order again attempts to

12 U.N. CHARTER, art. 76(b).

14 SCHMITT, supra note 8, at 183.

into force June 23, 1961).

international law in terms of the introduction of new spatial possibilities,

B. The Outer Space Treaty and the Geography of Space

It is within this context that we must approach the non-appropriation

adopted UNGA resolutions.17 Further, the Outer Space Treaty was a

THE ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 1–2 (1963).

harden those borders against conquest.

under the Outer Space Treaty. If Article II is understood as a ban on

celestial bodies confirms the idea that military conquest is banned).

34 Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16.

35 Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16.

“friendly relations among nations.”37 The post-1945 international

It is this author’s anecdotal experience that, in general, when the idea

37 U.N. CHARTER, art. 1, para. 2.

41 Outer Space Treaty, supra note 16.

Space, U.N. Doc. A/Res/72/77 (2017).

such as liability for torts or contracts involved in space activities are

123 (Peter Laslett ed. 1970) (2d ed. 1698).

were articulated and more places became “civilized” in a European sense,

52 CLARK, supra note 8, at 156.

56 See SCHMITT, supra note 8, at 97.

NON-APPROPRIATION PRINCIPLE FOR SPACE RESOURCE EXPLOITATION 18–33 (2016).

II. Space Property in State Practice

State practice on the nature of property rights in space is scant. Few

substance to a possible claim than a spacecraft alone. Unlike Luna-2, the

international community has never recognized these claims. Additionally,

There are three examples of states engaging in sample return missions.

65 Status of International Agreements Relating to Activities in Outer Space as at 1 January 2017,

U.N. Doc. A/AC.105/C.2/2017/CRP.7 (Mar. 28, 2017).

the quantity of material is small . . . its significance is very great.”71 Unlike

76 Hayabusa Sample Investigator’s Guidebook: For the International Announcement of

Opportunity, JAXA (May 8, 2017), https://perma.cc/4PQ8-JBEL.

B. Private Claims to Celestial Bodies

There have been numerous attempts by individuals and commercial

There is not any additional information as to what specific type of

77 Dennis M. Hope, What’s It All About?, LUNAR EMBASSY, https://perma.cc/J6GJ-KQ9K (last

HZWD (last visited Aug. 13, 2018).

84 Appellate Court, EROS PROJECT, https://perma.cc/UV8H-E5WB (last visited Sept. 6, 2019).

85 NATHAN C. GOLDMAN, AMERICAN SPACE LAW: INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC 142–43

(2d ed. 1988).

C. Private Ownership of Celestial Material

While both NASA and JAXA claim sole ownership of their

Draws Court Rebuke, WASH. POST (Apr. 14, 2017), https://perma.cc/LTV9-R8WS?type=image.

general. The purchaser then sought to sell the sample to an undercover

the auction sale.96

III. New Local Rules