39. Space Law

Space law! What is it? This week Tamsin Phillipa Paige speaks to Stacey Henderson and Cris van Eijk to find out! Recommendations! On the 'other' bi- and plurilateral space treaties: • Jean-Frederic Morin, 'Space Actors and Governance Explorer' (2024) www.institutions.space. • Pauline Pic, Philippe Evoy and Jean-Frédéric Morin, ‘Outer Space as a Global Commons: An Empirical Study of Space Arrangements’ (2023) 17 International Journal of the Commons 288: https://doi.org/10.5334/ijc.1271. On the shifting critical geography of space-as-environment: • Valerie Olson and Lisa Messeri, ‘Beyond the Anthropocene: Un-Earthing an Epoch’ (2015) 6 Environment and Society 28: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26204949. • Lisa Ruth Rand, ‘Space Is the Place: Extraplanetary Disorder in Histories of Science’ (2024) 9 BJHS Themes 59: https://doi.org/10.1017/bjt.2024.27. On space environmentalism: • Alessandra Marino, ‘Astroenvironmentalism as SF: Bordering (and Ordering) Otherworldly Ecologies’ (2023) 15 Environmental Humanities 25: https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-10216140. • The Center for Space Environmentalism (2025): https://www.spaceenvironmentalism.org. On the coloniality and colonial harms involved in space activity and space law: • Karlie Noon and Krystal de Napoli, Sky Country (Margo Neale ed, Thames and Hudson 2022), available here. • Cris van Eijk, ‘The Exclusive Making of Space Law’ [2025] Leiden Journal of International Law [FirstView]: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0922156524000554. On space archaeology: • In general: Alice Gorman, ‘Contact Zones and Outer Space Environments: A Feminist Archaeological Analysis of Space Habitats’ in James SJ Schwartz, Linda Billings and Erika Nesvold (eds), Reclaiming Space: Progressive and Multicultural Visions of Space Exploration (OUP 2023), 215-231: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197604793.003.0018. • On her recent collaboration on archaeology aboard the ISS: Justin St P Walsh and others, ‘Archaeology in Space: The Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE) on the International Space Station. Report 1: Squares 03 and 05’ (2024) 19 PLOS ONE e0304229: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304229. Fiction! • Maya Hoshimoto in Yume Kitasei's the Stardust Grail, available here. Animal pictures: Phasma: https://bsky.app/profile/staceyhenderson.bsky.social/post/3lb74z6agqk2d The Admiral: https://bsky.app/profile/pagingdrpaige.bsky.social/post/3lnxepmkvac23 Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait