The cosmolegal approach to human activities in outer space

In response to a call to imagine extraterrestrial liberties, this chapter uses cosmolegality as a concept and an approach for international law in the context of outer space to argue for a fundamental change in the thought and practice of modern law. Its premise is that human interference required to mitigate anthropogenic environmental degradation in outer space needs to incline towards a new thinking for its regulatory framework, which will assume as the starting point the agency of the non-human. It posits that current international law provides the foundation for value extraction by private enterprises and individual state interests in the resource potential of both domains—the Earth System and outer space—at a time of mass extinctions and climate change. In order to remedy this gap, the cosmolegal objective is to recognise and incorporate non-human agency in international law. The term ‘cosmolegal’ merges cosmology (as a branch of astronomy) with law, to represent the interactions between humans and non-humans beyond, and including, the Earth System. It aims to show what the future would look like if we used the existing interdisciplinary and plural knowledges to address environmental concerns.