Property disputes are as old as civilization. Some of the earliest written laws concern remedies for the misuse of another’s property. For most of our species’ history, these questions over property ownership have been confined to our home planet, Earth. However, this is poised to change.
Space commerce and exploration threaten to resurrect problematic legal principles guiding property ownership, specifically the Doctrine of Discovery, one of the earliest examples of international law. The Doctrine managed inter- and intra-European colonial affairs for nearly half a millennium. Scholarly discussion of it has largely focused on relations between Indigenous peoples and nations that employed the Doctrine. Yet, as entrepreneurs and nations inch closer to economically feasible space travel and commercialization, the Doctrine has resurfaced as a potential legal justification for territorial claims in space.