Is outer space a global common?

Supervisors:

Professor Rosanna Deplano  rd279@leicester.ac.uk
Professor Katja Ziegler katja.ziegler@leicester.ac.uk

Project description:

Background
Outer space is a strategic environment increasingly used for scientific, commercial and security purposes. The number of actors (public and private) conducting activities in outer space keeps growing at a fast rate, effectively making outer space an arena for competition over limited resources, especially in low Earth orbit. This raises the questions of equitable access to and use of outer space. The multilateral treaties on outer space do not define outer space, nor do they address of equity per se. They only protect the freedom of exploration and use of outer space by all States, without discrimination.

Because of the different degrees of space capability between spacefaring, emerging spacefaring and non-spacefaring countries, States often describe outer space as a global common. But the meaning of this reference is uncertain. The outer space treaties do not use the terminology of global commons. This begs the question: what is the meaning and what are the legal implications stemming from considering outer space to be a global common?

Aim and objectives

The doctoral project will:

• Examine the practice of States conducting activities in outer space with a view to identifying when, and under what circumstances, they refer to outer space as a global common.
• Compare relevant State practice describing other areas as a global common, also in the light of the relevant international law frameworks (e.g. law of the sea, Antarctic regime, air law, environmental/climate law).
• Problematise State practice on the global commons: does it reflect the presence of a unified or area-specific concept?
• Conceptualise the implications for the progressive development of international space law and other areas of international law (e.g. assessing whether any common elements of the notion ‘global common’, as examined in the selected areas of State practice, has acquired customary international law status, generated general principles of international law or led to evolutive treaty interpretation).

The doctoral project will be developed in collaboration with the Centre for European Law and Internationalisation (CELI).

References:  

• Rossana Deplano, ‘International Space Law’ in Malcolm D Evans (ed), International Law (6th ed, OUP 2024), 667.
• Rossana Deplano, ‘Inclusive Space Law: The Concept of Benefit Sharing in the Outer Space Treaty’ (2023) 72(3) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 671. 
• Pauline Pic, Philippe Evoy and Jean-Frédéric Morin, ‘Outer Space as a Global Commons: An Empirical Study of Space Arrangements’ (2023) 17(1) International Journal of the Commons 288.