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As Lunar Mining Looms, a Change of Perspective Could Protect Earth's Ancient Companion

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

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

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)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 03 2020, @03:34PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 03 2020, @03:34PM (#1045884) Journal

    Silly Rabbit, Corporations are people too!

    Therefore the Moon should be able to be a person too.

    Corporations make legally accountable decisions. And they aren't actually people, they are treated like people. That incidentally is more or less the same mechanism that would be used for the Moon.

    My take is that the real problem is that such a control mechanism becomes a target for anyone who wants to control a large part of human destiny. Maybe some business gets control for profit. Maybe some Luddites do to slow down human progress. A glaring example of how this can go wrong is ICANN's attempt at selling off .org sites to a shady business for a billion dollars.

    My take is that if there's no such global corporation to control lunar activities, then there's no such attack surface to exploit.