The intersection between space law and international human rights law

The international legal regulation of outer space represents an ongoing challenge in terms of establishing and implementing frameworks that are appropriate means of global governance. Those of us who are concerned with the legal regulation of outer space have come to realize that there are myriad factors associated with this regime. These are both of a ‘law’ (hard and ‘soft’) nature, as well as stemming from a range of other non-legal areas such as history, technology, science, economics, sociology etc. Dealing with the traditional legal aspects, the United Nations Space Treaties and specific space-related General Assembly Resolutions undoubtedly form an important corpus of rules and guidelines which serve to fashion our conduct in the exploration and use of outer space. The fundamental principles that these instruments set out represent important foundations upon which humankind’s endeavours in outer space have traditionally been based, at least in the public debate. They have also been largely successful in – thus far – steering us away from cataclysmic errors of judgment in the way that we have utilized outer space.