Space resources in the evolutionary course of space lawmaking

Abstract

The United States’ enactment of the Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act of 20151 marked a significant turn in the evolutionary course of space lawmaking, although not for the reasons commonly cited. The Act is noteworthy not for its substance, but as a symptom of emerging structural change in how space law is made, and by whom. Using space resources as a case study, this essay charts this evolutionary shift in space lawmaking and assesses its implications for the international regime on which a growing and increasingly diverse range of space operators depend.