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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 02 2020, @01:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the loonie-bin dept.

Can the moon be a person? As lunar mining looms, a change of perspective could protect Earth's ancient companion:

Everyone is planning to return to the moon. At least 10 missions by half a dozen nations are scheduled before the end of 2021, and that's only the beginning.

Even though there are international treaties governing outer space, ambiguity remains about how individuals, nations and corporations can use lunar resources.

In all of this, the moon is seen as an inert object with no value in its own right.

But should we treat this celestial object, which has been part of the culture of every hominin for millions of years, as just another resource?

[...] As a thought experiment in how we might regulate lunar exploitation, some have asked whether the moon should be granted legal personhood, which would give it the right to enter into contracts, own property, and sue other persons.

Legal personhood is already extended to many non-human entities: certain rivers, deities in some parts of India, and corporations worldwide. Environmental features can't speak for themselves, so trustees are appointed to act on their behalf, as is the case for the Whanganui River in New Zealand. One proposal is to apply the New Zealand model to the moon.

[...] Can we support the legal concept of personhood for the moon with actual features of personhood?

Journal Reference:
Eytan Tepper, Christopher Whitehead. Moon, Inc.: The New Zealand Model of Granting Legal Personality to Natural Resources Applied to Space, New Space (DOI: 10.1089/space.2018.0025)


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @02:27PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @02:27PM (#1045385)

    Legal personhood is already extended to many non-human entities: certain rivers, deities in some parts of India, and corporations worldwide. Environmental features can't speak for themselves, so trustees are appointed to act on their behalf

    There is an assumption here that everyone agrees that rivers, deities and corporations should have legal personhood. I don't believe they should, for example. It has created a grey area and a big mess.

    The overall goal here is not to give the moon legal personhood, though. It's to assign a group of actual people the rights of representing the moon as a legal person. That group of trustees would then have the power to act as the moon in legal settings. This is yet another "follow the money" situation.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday September 02 2020, @02:44PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday September 02 2020, @02:44PM (#1045392)

    Exactly what I was thinking. Grant it personhood, and whoever speaks for the moon, owns the moon.

  • (Score: 2) by nostyle on Wednesday September 02 2020, @03:37PM (1 child)

    by nostyle (11497) on Wednesday September 02 2020, @03:37PM (#1045427) Journal

    Who will husband the moon?

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @04:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2020, @04:31PM (#1045448)

      Well, we certainly know who will fuck it.

  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 02 2020, @04:51PM (4 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday September 02 2020, @04:51PM (#1045468) Journal
    In other words, just another employment scam for lawyers, the same groups who lobbied against no-fault divorce because it exposed that there are way more lawyers than we really need. The same group that lobbied against increased dollar amounts for small claims courts, cutting them out of more civil lawsuits. The same cunts and pricks who can outright lie in court on behalf of their clients because they don't have to take an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so can't be charged with perjury.

    Let's be constructive here - remove personhood from lawyers.

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    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:18PM (3 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday September 02 2020, @08:18PM (#1045566)

      As much fun as it is to hate lawyers: Lawyers who get caught lying to the court risk losing their law license and depending on how seriously they screw up can also be jailed for contempt of court. Good lawyers don't lie, they highlight the portion of the truth good for their client, and make legal arguments that are convincing and at least technically correct.

      Also, different specialties in law are basically completely different fields. Having a divorce specialist handle your criminal trial would be like having a cardiologist handle an appendectomy - they'd do better than somebody with no related training, but are definitely not doing something they're comfortable with. So I'd expect the lawyers to be happy about this one to be lawyers focused on mineral rights, environmental damage, or real estate.

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      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday September 02 2020, @11:11PM (2 children)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Wednesday September 02 2020, @11:11PM (#1045638) Journal

        Lawyers in criminal trials can lie all they want. Their defence is that they are obligated to provide the bes defence possible.

        As a juror in a murder trial, I'm not allowed to say what went on in deliberations, but open court is another matter. The defence lied their ass off with theatrics so amateurish and a theory so ridiculous I almost laughed out loud.

        After we convicted, we found out that a confession had been tossed out. The defence knew this the prosecution knew this, the judge knew this. So the defence lied their asses off trying to pin it on a 3rd party and the victim.

        Prosecutors also lie. They know a witness isn't credible, but they do everything to make the witness appear credible. They know the witness is lying, they don't correct the witness.

        And people lie in court all the time. Fortunately some of them are really stupid, which is why they have to lie in the first place. It's easier to just be honest than it is to lie all the time and try to keep all the lies straight.

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        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 03 2020, @06:37PM (1 child)

          by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 03 2020, @06:37PM (#1045969)

          After we convicted, we found out that a confession had been tossed out.

          If the confession had been thrown out, that's an indication that the cops did something they shouldn't have when they got the confession (e.g. beat them until they confessed, denied them legal counsel, or just flat-out faked it). That doesn't mean the guy is not guilty, but it means that that evidence was in fact something you should not have taken into account, and from the defense lawyer's point of view especially that confession might as well not have existed.

          And, as I said, you have to prove that the defense lawyer actually lied. I agree that's a tough standard to meet, but it means lawyers have to be careful if they want to keep their law practice afloat.

          --
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          • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday September 04 2020, @11:36PM

            by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Friday September 04 2020, @11:36PM (#1046613) Journal
            Nope. The confession was thrown out because there was a question as to whether the killer understood the questions (native of Sri Lanka).

            She gave the confession voluntarily, but it was tossed because it was argued that she didn't understand the warnings she was given at the start of her confession.

            The police acted in good faith, and given that she had been through several years off local education, and confessed in the local language without an interpreter, it being tossed was more likely to deprive the defence of a chance to muddy the waters by questioning the validity of the confession . So the defence screwed up in successfully arguing that it should have been tossed. Because when the facts are against you, pound on the law, when you law is against you, pound on the fact, and when both are against you pound on the table.

            So the defence pounded on the table. They knew their client had admitted to the killing. They knew the facts were against her. They knew the law was against her. So they outright lied, trying to blame someone else; first an unknown intruder, then the husband of the victim. They must have thought it was dramatic flourishing with "the great reveal of the true killer ", but it was a farce. Made worse by the supposed re-enactment.

            But lawyers aren't under oath. So expect lies. Cops lie under oath because they are extremely biased. They have to support whatever cock-and-bull story another cop gave, they need a good conviction rate to advance their career, and they often are not psychologically fit for the job.

            The guilty person has a huge motivation to lie. It's just the innocent person who's going to come across as less than truthful because they get flustered by the whole process and don't understand everyone else's motives for distorting the truth.

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  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday September 02 2020, @11:28PM

    by Bot (3902) on Wednesday September 02 2020, @11:28PM (#1045648) Journal

    LOL deities need a piece of paper by meatbags to be persons? I guess this is considered a very funny concept upstairs.

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