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Elon Musk will run into trouble setting up a Martian government, lawyers say:
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is steadfast in realizing his dreams of establishing a permanent colony on Mars, but any new government there will face immense legal challenges.
We got an early glimpse of what such a future society could look like, buried deep inside the user agreement for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service.
“For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities,” the terms of service read. “Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”
[...] Lawyers, however, have their doubts about SpaceX’s abilities to set up a Martian state. In fact, several told The Independent in a new story, what SpaceX has laid out in its Starlink user agreement isn’t radically different from space treaties that have been signed over the years.
[...] For instance, the 2020 Artemis accords stipulate that “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
[...] “[Musk] could be trying to lay some groundwork for offering up an independent constitution… just like he did for electric cars and reusable launch vehicles,” [Randy Segal, of the law firm Hogan Lovells] told The Independent. “Does it have any precedent or enforceability? The answer I’d say is clearly no; but if you say something enough, people might come around.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 31 2020, @06:03AM (1 child)
This is a sad commentary on modern governments. The need for a military to protect one's sovereignty from invasion is necessary, yes. However, a government need only impose its will on the population if the people are not ruled voluntarily by the government. Ideally, government should reflect the will of the people, who voluntarily accepts the authority of the government. In that case, the role of the police is to prevent bad actors from subverting the people.
There are two other issues here:
1) Let's say that Musk sets up a Martian state that is sufficiently beyond the ability of Earth governments to enforce their will. Musk will still have assets on Earth, which most certainly will be within the reach of those governments. The USA might lack the ability to impose their laws on Mars, but they can still seize Musk's assets in the USA.
2) It's entirely possible that it wouldn't be worth the effort to try to regulate a Martian state, allowing it to be a de facto government for a period of time. The sovereignty of a Martian state might become the accepted precedent and later efforts to encroach upon its sovereignty might be opposed by the people of Earth on the basis of the accepted precedent. An example is the Holy See, which doesn't fully satisfy the criteria for statehood, yet historical precedent allows the Holy See to operate as a sovereign nation. Italy legally recognizes the sovereignty of the Holy See within Vatican City pursuant to the Lateran Treaty of 1929, but other countries are not bound by the treaty.
(Score: 2) by Socrastotle on Friday January 01 2021, @04:02PM
It's not "modern governments" - monopoly on violence has always been what defined a government.
It can be easy to view this cynically as you have, but there's a very practical reason that this is the way it is. Imagine, for instance, that Google had sufficient power to resist any efforts of legal enforcement on behalf of the US government. They could, at this point, effectively declare themselves the new government, start unilaterally passing their own laws and enforcing them, and require every person involuntarily give them a percent of every transaction - a "tax." What's the "old" government going to do? Tell them that's against the law?
This is also why we are trending towards becoming a country, if not a world, ruled by corporations. As corporations grow immensely more powerful and integrate themselves into governments, at some point the governments will become less able to enforce their will than the corporations. Some might argue we're already there. We can get laws passed banning competing businesses (TikTok), making "illicit streaming" a felony with a decade in prison, give the mega-corporations billions of dollars while small businesses are left to die, and much more. But a basic digital privacy (or even civil) rights law? Dead on arrival. Laws benefiting genuine* small business and entrepreneurship? Again, generally dead on arrival. I add genuine because the definition of small business has been co-opted [ecfr.gov] by big business. Are you a commercial bank with half a billion dollars in assets and 1,000 employees? Congrats, you're a small business!