AC - Incarcerated Workers NC - Util Essential Workers Unconditional Bad 1AR - All NR - All Burdens 2AR - All Weighing
Alta
4
Opponent: Alta MD | Judge: Ean Neiswanger
AC - Incarcerated Workers NC - Econ FW Trad Jobs Essential Workers Economic Growth Nebel 1AR - FW Nebel T Aff Neg NR - All Nebel T 2AR - Fw Nebel T Aff Turn
AC - Commons NC - Case Turns Col 1AR - All NR - Turns 2AR - Ad 2
Emory
1
Opponent: Cardinal Gibbons RS | Judge: Alex Berry
AC - Commons NC - IR Pess Case 1AR - All NR - Pess 1AR - All
HW
2
Opponent: Dougherty Valley KZ | Judge: Andrew Gong
AC - Debris Colonialism NC - T Appropriation India Soft Power Russia Expansion US Heg 1AR - All NR - India Soft Power 2AR - Colonialism
Jack HoweLong Beach
1
Opponent: Brookfield East DJ | Judge: Clark-Villanueva, Leah
AC covid NC tiny bit of t disability pes 1AR covid t pes NR k covid method 2AR fw mostly
Peninsula
1
Opponent: Immaculate Heart EL | Judge: Saketh Kotapati
AC - commons NC - DIB DA 1AR - All NR - All 2AR - Debris
Peninsula
3
Opponent: Harvard Westlake KD | Judge: Jonathan Meza
Ac - Commons NC - Fem Case 1AR - All NR - Fem 2AR - All
Presentation
5
Opponent: Summit MR | Judge: Zaid Umar
AC - Covid NC - Innovation
Presentation
1
Opponent: Notre Dame San Jose AG | Judge: Ben Cortez
AC - Doctors wo Borders NC - T T Increase Production Infra DA Cap K
UNLV
3
Opponent: Chattahoochee EK | Judge: Nikhil Navare
AC - Commons NC - Extra T weird Disclosure Ballistic Missles CP Heg DA 1AR - All NR - CP 2AR - Aff CP
x
2
Opponent: x | Judge: me
xx
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Cites
Entry
Date
0 - Contact Info
Tournament: x | Round: 2 | Opponent: x | Judge: me hi!
my cites are being weird, so the later cards aren't being cited. Sorry about that, but everything is disclosed on open source.
email: margalitsalkin25@marlborough.org
1/23/22
JF - Space Commons AC
Tournament: HW | Round: 2 | Opponent: Dougherty Valley KZ | Judge: Andrew Gong
Advantage 1: Space Debris
Private companies are cramming satellites into the Earth’s orbit, which are quickly becoming defunct pieces of "space junk."
Therese Wood, 20 - ("Who owns our orbit: Just how many satellites are there in space?," World Economic Forum, 10-23-2020, 12-8-2021https:www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/visualizing-easrth-satellites-sapce-spacex)AW There are nearly 6,000 satellites circling the Earth, but only 40
AND
175 satellites in the span of one month, from August to September 2020
Increasing space debris levels inevitably set off a chain of collisions.
away, meaning that there is still time to develop a solution.52
Collisions make orbit unusable, causing nuclear war, mass starvation, and economic destruction.
Les Johnson 13, Deputy Manager for NASA's Advanced Concepts Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Co-Investigator for the JAXA T-Rex Space Tether Experiment and PI of NASA's ProSEDS Experiment, Master's Degree in Physics from Vanderbilt University, Popular Science Writer, and NASA Technologist, Frequent Contributor to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Sodety and Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Space Society, the World Future Society, and MENSA, Sky Alert!: When Satellites Fail, p. 9-12 ~language modified~ Whatever the initial cause, the result may be the same. A satellite destroyed
AND
, our military advantage over potential adversaries would be dramatically reduced or eliminated.
Advantage 2: Corporate Colonialism
Tech-billionaires advance a vision of private space colonization as a source of infinite resources to cure society’s ills. This rationalizes unrestrained consumption and replicates the logic of imperialism.
Mccormick 21 ~Ted McCormick writes about the history of science, empire, and economic thought. He has a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and teaches at Concordia University in Montreal. "The billionaire space race reflects a colonial mindset that fails to imagine a different world". 8-15-2021. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-billionaire-space-race-reflects-a-colonial-mindset-that-fails-to-imagine-a-different-world-165235. Accessed 12-15-2021; marlborough JH~ It was a time of political uncertainty, cultural conflict and social change. Private
AND
in defiance of all limits. We are struggling with these consequences today.
If only wealthy elites can tap the vast resources of outer space, we lock in a permanent and unconscionable inequality. Private space colonization amounts to unchecked exploitation and authoritarian corporate control of future settlements. Spencer ‘17
, our rallying cry should be this: Keep the red planet red!
This private expansion into space results in corporate colonization of planets that undermines the interests of the rest of humanity. Spencer ’17
Spencer, Keith A. ~senior editor at Salon~"Against Mars-a-Lago: Why SpaceX's Mars Colonization Plan Should Terrify You." Salon, Salon.com, Oct. 8 2017, https://www.salon.com/2017/10/08/against-mars-a-lago-why-spacexs-mars-colonization-plan-should-terrify-you/. When CEO Elon Musk announced last month that his aerospace company SpaceX would be sending cargo missions to Mars by 2022 — the first step in his tourism-driven colonization plan — a small cheer went up among space and science enthusiasts. Writing in the New York Post, Stephen Carter called Musk’s vision "inspiring," a salve for politically contentious times. "Our species has turned its vision inward; our image of human possibility has grown cramped and pessimistic," Carter wrote: "We dream less of reaching the stars than of winning the next election; less of maturing as a species than of shunning those who are different; less of the blessings of an advanced technological tomorrow than of an apocalyptic future marked by a desperate struggle to survive. Maybe a focus on the possibility of reaching our nearest planetary neighbor will help change all that." The Post editorial reflected a growing media consensus that humankind’s ultimate destiny is the colonization of the solar system — yet on a private basis. American government leaders generally agree with this vision. Obama egged on the privatization of NASA by legislating a policy shift to private commercial spaceflight, awarding government contracts to private companies like SpaceX to shuttle supplies to the International Space Station. "Governments can develop new technology and do some of the exciting early exploration but in the long run it's the private sector that finds ways to make profit, finds ways to expand humanity," said Dr. S. Pete Worden, the director of the NASA Ames Research lab, in 2012. And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote of his ambitions to bring American-style capitalism to the stars: "In the years to come, American industry must be the first to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-Earth orbit, to expand the sphere of the economy beyond this blue marble," Pence wrote. One wonders if these luminaries know their history. There has be no instance in which a private corporation became a colonizing power that did not end badly for everyone besides the shareholders. The East India Company is perhaps the finest portent of Musk’s Martian ambitions. In 1765, the East India Company forced the Mughal emperor to sign a legal agreement that would essentially permit their company to become the de facto rulers of Bengal. The East India Company then collected taxes and used its private army, which was over 200,000 strong by the early 19th century, to repress those who got in the way of its profit margins. "It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath," writes William Dalrymple in the Guardian. "It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history." The East India Company came to colonize much of the Indian subcontinent. In the modern era, an era in which the right of corporations to do what they want, unencumbered, has become a sacrosanct right in the eyes of many politicians, the lessons of the East India Company seem to have been all but forgotten. As Dalrymple writes: Democracy as we know it was considered an advance over feudalism because of the power that it gave the commoners to share in collective governance. To privately colonize a nation, much less a planet, means ceding governance and control back to corporations whose interest is not ours, and indeed, is always at odds with workers and residents — particularly in a resource-limited environment like a spaceship or the red planet. Even if, as Musk suggests, a private foundation is put in charge of running the show on Mars, their interests will inherently be at odds with the workers and employees involved. After all, a private foundation is not a democracy; and as major philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation illustrate, often do the bidding of their rich donors, and take an important role in ripening industries and regions for exploitation by Western corporations. Yet Mars’ colonization is a bit different than Bengal, namely in that it is not merely underdeveloped; it is undeveloped. How do you start an entirely new economy on a virgin world with no industry? After all, Martian resource extraction and trade with Earth is not feasible; the cost of transporting material across the solar system is astronomical, and there are no obvious minerals on Mars that we don’t already have in abundance on Earth. The only basis for colonization of Mars that Musk can conceive of is one based on tourism: the rich pay an amount — Musk quotes the ticket price at $200,000 if he can get 1 million tourists to pay that — that entitles them to a round-trip ticket. And while they’re on Mars and traveling to it, they luxuriate: Musk has assured that the trip would be "fun." This is what makes Musk’s Mars vision so different than, say, the Apollo missions or the International Space Station. This isn’t really exploration for humanity’s sake — there’s not that much science assumed here, as there was in the Moon missions. Musk wants to build the ultimate luxury package, exclusively for the richest among us. Musk isn’t trying to build something akin to Matt Damon’s spartan research base in "The Martian." He wants to build Mars-a-Lago. And an economy based on tourism, particularly high-end tourism, needs employees — even if a high degree of automation is assumed. And as I’ve written about before, that means a lot of labor at the lowest cost possible. Imagine signing away years of your life to be a housekeeper in the Mars-a-Lago hotel, with your communications, water, food, energy usage, even oxygen tightly managed by your employer, and no government to file a grievance to if your employer cuts your wages, harasses you, cuts off your oxygen. Where would Mars-a-Lago's employees turn if their rights were impinged upon? Oh wait, this planet is run privately? You have no rights. Musk's vision for Mars colonization is inherently authoritarian. The potential for the existence of the employees of the Martian tourism industry to slip into something resembling indentured servitude, even slavery, cannot be underestimated. We have government regulations for a reason on Earth — to protect us from the fresh horror Musk hopes to export to Mars. If he's considered these questions, he doesn't seem to care; for Musk, the devil's in the technological and financial details. The social and political are pretty uninteresting to him. This is unsurprising; accounts from those who have worked closely with him hint that he, like many CEOs, may be a sociopath. Even as a space enthusiast, I cannot get excited about the private colonization of Mars. You shouldn’t be either. This is not a giant leap for mankind; this is the next great leap in plutocracy. The mere notion that global wealth is so unevenly distributed that a small but sufficient sum of rich people could afford this trip is unsettling, indicative of the era of astonishing economic inequality in which we suffer. Thomas Frank, writing in Harpers, once wrote of a popular t-shirt he sighted while picnicking in a small West Virginia coal town: "Mine it union or keep it in the ground." The idea, of course, is that the corporations interested in resource extraction do not care whatsoever about their workers’ health, safety, or well-being; the union had their interests at heart, and was able to negotiate for safety, job security, and so on. I’d like to see a similar t-shirt or bumper sticker emerge among scientists and space enthusiasts: "Explore Mars democratically, or keep it in the sky."
Neoliberalism destroys ethics, locks in poverty and exploitation, decimates the environment, and causes war.
Werlhof 15 – Claudia, Professor of Political Science/Women's Studies, University Innsbruck (Austria), 2015 ("Neoliberal Globalization: Is There an Alternative to Plundering the Earth?" Global Research, May 25th, Available Online at http://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberal-globalization-is-there-an-alternative-to-plundering-the-earth/24403) At the center of both old and new economic liberalism lies: Self-interest and individualism; segregation of ethical principles and economic affairs, in other words: a process of ‘de-bedding’ economy from society; economic rationality as a mere cost-benefit calculation and profit maximization; competition as the essential driving force for growth and progress; specialization and the replacement of a subsistence economy with profit-oriented foreign trade (‘comparative cost advantage’); and the proscription of public (state) interference with market forces.~3~ Where the new economic liberalism outdoes the old is in its global claim. Today’s economic liberalism functions as a model for each and everyone: all parts of the economy, all sectors of society, of life/nature itself. As a consequence, the once "de-bedded" economy now claims to "im-bed" everything, including political power. Furthermore, a new twisted "economic ethics" (and with it a certain idea of "human nature") emerges that mocks everything from so-called do-gooders to altruism to selfless help to care for others to a notion of responsibility.~4~ This goes as far as claiming that the common good depends entirely on the uncontrolled egoism of the individual and, especially, on the prosperity of transnational corporations. The allegedly necessary "freedom" of the economy – which, paradoxically, only means the freedom of corporations – hence consists of a freedom from responsibility and commitment to society. The maximization of profit itself must occur within the shortest possible time; this means, preferably, through speculation and "shareholder value". It must meet as few obstacles as possible. Today, global economic interests outweigh not only extra-economic concerns but also national economic considerations since corporations today see themselves beyond both community and nation.~5~ A "level playing field" is created that offers the global players the best possible conditions. This playing field knows of no legal, social, ecological, cultural or national "barriers".~6~ As a result, economic competition plays out on a market that is free of all non-market, extra-economic or protectionist influences – unless they serve the interests of the big players (the corporations), of course. The corporations’ interests – their maximal growth and progress – take on complete priority. This is rationalized by alleging that their well-being means the well-being of small enterprises and workshops as well. The difference between the new and the old economic liberalism can first be articulated in quantitative terms: after capitalism went through a series of ruptures and challenges – caused by the "competing economic system", the crisis of capitalism, post-war "Keynesianism" with its social and welfare state tendencies, internal mass consumer demand (so-called Fordism), and the objective of full employment in the North. The liberal economic goals of the past are now not only euphorically resurrected but they are also "globalized". The main reason is indeed that the competition between alternative economic systems is gone. However, to conclude that this confirms the victory of capitalism and the "golden West" over "dark socialism" is only one possible interpretation. Another – opposing – interpretation is to see the "modern world system" (which contains both capitalism and socialism) as having hit a general crisis which causes total and merciless competition over global resources while leveling the way for investment opportunities, i.e. the valorization of capital.~7~ The ongoing globalization of neoliberalism demonstrates which interpretation is right. Not least, because the differences between the old and the new economic liberalism can not only be articulated in quantitative terms but in qualitative ones too. What we are witnessing are completely new phenomena: instead of a democratic "complete competition" between many small enterprises enjoying the freedom of the market, only the big corporations win. In turn, they create new market oligopolies and monopolies of previously unknown dimensions. The market hence only remains free for them, while it is rendered unfree for all others who are condemned to an existence of dependency (as enforced producers, workers and consumers) or excluded from the market altogether (if they have neither anything to sell or buy). About fifty percent of the world’s population fall into this group today, and the percentage is rising.~8~ Anti-trust laws have lost all power since the transnational corporations set the norms. It is the corporations – not "the market" as an anonymous mechanism or "invisible hand" – that determine today’s rules of trade, for example prices and legal regulations. This happens outside any political control. Speculation with an average twenty percent profit margin edges out honest producers who become "unprofitable".~9~ Money becomes too precious for comparatively non-profitable, long-term projects, or projects that only – how audacious! – serve a good life. Money instead "travels upwards" and disappears. Financial capital determines more and more what the markets are and do.~10~ By delinking the dollar from the price of gold, money creation no longer bears a direct relationship to production".~11~ Moreover, these days most of us are – exactly like all governments – in debt. It is financial capital that has all the money – we have none.~12~ Small, medium, even some bigger enterprises are pushed out of the market, forced to fold or swallowed by transnational corporations because their performances are below average in comparison to speculation – rather: spookulation – wins. The public sector, which has historically been defined as a sector of not-for-profit economy and administration, is "slimmed" and its "profitable" parts ("gems") handed to corporations (privatized). As a consequence, social services that are necessary for our existence disappear. Small and medium private businesses – which, until recently, employed eighty percent of the workforce and provided normal working conditions – are affected by these developments as well. The alleged correlation between economic growth and secure employment is false. When economic growth is accompanied by the mergers of businesses, jobs are lost.~13~ If there are any new jobs, most are precarious, meaning that they are only available temporarily and badly paid. One job is usually not enough to make a living.~14~ This means that the working conditions in the North become akin to those in the South, and the working conditions of men akin to those of women – a trend diametrically opposed to what we have always been told. Corporations now leave for the South (or East) to use cheap – and particularly female – labor without union affiliation. This has already been happening since the 1970s in the "Export Processing Zones" (EPZs, "world market factories" or "maquiladoras"), where most of the world’s computer chips, sneakers, clothes and electronic goods are produced.~15~ The EPZs lie in areas where century-old colonial-capitalist and authoritarian-patriarchal conditions guarantee the availability of cheap labor.~16~ The recent shift of business opportunities from consumer goods to armaments is a particularly troubling development.~17~ It is not only commodity production that is "outsourced" and located in the EPZs, but service industries as well. This is a result of the so-called Third Industrial Revolution, meaning the development of new information and communication technologies. Many jobs have disappeared entirely due to computerization, also in administrative fields.~18~ The combination of the principles of "high tech" and "low wage"/"no wage" (always denied by "progress" enthusiasts) guarantees a "comparative cost advantage" in foreign trade. This will eventually lead to "Chinese wages" in the West. A potential loss of Western consumers is not seen as a threat. A corporate economy does not care whether consumers are European, Chinese or Indian. The means of production become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially since finance capital – rendered precarious itself – controls asset values ever more aggressively. New forms of private property are created, not least through the "clearance" of public property and the transformation of formerly public and small-scale private services and industries to a corporate business sector. This concerns primarily fields that have long been (at least partly) excluded from the logic of profit – e.g. education, health, energy or water supply/disposal. New forms of so-called enclosures emerge from today’s total commercialization of formerly small-scale private or public industries and services, of the "commons", and of natural resources like oceans, rain forests, regions of genetic diversity or geopolitical interest (e.g. potential pipeline routes), etc.~19~ As far as the new virtual spaces and communication networks go, we are witnessing frantic efforts to bring these under private control as well.~20~ All these new forms of private property are essentially created by (more or less) predatory forms of appropriation. In this sense, they are a continuation of the history of so-called original accumulation which has expanded globally, in accordance with to the motto: "Growth through expropriation!"~21~ Most people have less and less access to the means of production, and so the dependence on scarce and underpaid work increases. The destruction of the welfare state also destroys the notion that individuals can rely on the community to provide for them in times of need. Our existence relies exclusively on private, i.e. expensive, services that are often of much worse quality and much less reliable than public services. (It is a myth that the private always outdoes the public.) What we are experiencing is undersupply formerly only known by the colonial South. The old claim that the South will eventually develop into the North is proven wrong. It is the North that increasingly develops into the South. We are witnessing the latest form of "development", namely, a world system of underdevelopment.~22~ Development and underdevelopment go hand in hand.~23~ This might even dawn on "development aid" workers soon. It is usually women who are called upon to counterbalance underdevelopment through increased work ("service provisions") in the household. As a result, the workload and underpay of women takes on horrendous dimensions: they do unpaid work inside their homes and poorly paid "housewifized" work outside.~24~ Yet, commercialization does not stop in front of the home’s doors either. Even housework becomes commercially co-opted ("new maid question"), with hardly any financial benefits for the women who do the work.~25~ Not least because of this, women are increasingly coerced into prostitution, one of today’s biggest global industries.~26~ This illustrates two things: a) how little the "emancipation" of women actually leads to "equal terms" with men; and b) that "capitalist development" does not imply increased "freedom" in wage labor relations, as the Left has claimed for a long time.~27~ If the latter were the case, then neoliberalism would mean the voluntary end of capitalism once it reaches its furthest extension. This, however, does not appear likely. Today, hundreds of millions of quasi-slaves, more than ever before, exist in the "world system."~28~ The authoritarian model of the "Export Processing Zones" is conquering the East and threatening the North. The redistribution of wealth runs ever more – and with ever accelerated speed – from the bottom to the top. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. The middle classes disappear. This is the situation we are facing. It becomes obvious that neoliberalism marks not the end of colonialism but, to the contrary, the colonization of the North. This new "colonization of the world"~29~ points back to the beginnings of the "modern world system" in the "long 16th century", when the conquering of the Americas, their exploitation and colonial transformation allowed for the rise and "development" of Europe.~30~ The so-called "children’s diseases" of modernity keep on haunting it, even in old age. They are, in fact, the main feature of modernity’s latest stage. They are expanding instead of disappearing. Where there is no South, there is no North; where there is no periphery, there is no center; where there is no colony, there is no – in any case no "Western" – civilization.~31~ Austria is part of the world system too. It is increasingly becoming a corporate colony (particularly of German corporations). This, however, does not keep it from being an active colonizer itself, especially in the East.~32~ Social, cultural, traditional and ecological considerations are abandoned and give way to a mentality of plundering. All global resources that we still have – natural resources, forests, water, genetic pools – have turned into objects of utilization. Rapid ecological destruction through depletion is the consequence. If one makes more profit by cutting down trees than by planting them, then there is no reason not to cut them.~33~ Neither the public nor the state interferes, despite global warming and the obvious fact that the clearing of the few remaining rain forests will irreversibly destroy the earth’s climate – not to mention the many other negative effects of such actions.~34~ Climate, animal, plants, human and general ecological rights are worth nothing compared to the interests of the corporations – no matter that the rain forest is not a renewable resource and that the entire earth’s ecosystem depends on it. If greed, and the rationalism with which it is economically enforced, really was an inherent anthropological trait, we would have never even reached this day. The commander of the Space Shuttle that circled the earth in 2005 remarked that "the center of Africa was burning". She meant the Congo, in which the last great rain forest of the continent is located. Without it there will be no more rain clouds above the sources of the Nile. However, it needs to disappear in order for corporations to gain free access to the Congo’s natural resources that are the reason for the wars that plague the region today. After all, one needs diamonds and coltan for mobile phones. Today, everything on earth is turned into commodities, i.e. everything becomes an object of "trade" and commercialization (which truly means liquidation, the transformation of all into liquid money). In its neoliberal stage it is not enough for capitalism to globally pursue less cost-intensive and preferably "wageless" commodity production. The objective is to transform everyone and everything into commodities, including life itself.~35~ We are racing blindly towards the violent and absolute conclusion of this "mode of production", namely total capitalization/liquidation by "monetarization".~36~ We are not only witnessing perpetual praise of the market – we are witnessing what can be described as "market fundamentalism". People believe in the market as if it was a god. There seems to be a sense that nothing could ever happen without it. Total global maximized accumulation of money/capital as abstract wealth becomes the sole purpose of economic activity. A "free" world market for everything has to be established – a world market that functions according to the interests of the corporations and capitalist money. The installment of such a market proceeds with dazzling speed. It creates new profit possibilities where they have not existed before, e.g. in Iraq, Eastern Europe or China. One thing remains generally overlooked: the abstract wealth created for accumulation implies the destruction of nature as concrete wealth. The result is a "hole in the ground" and next to it a garbage dump with used commodities, outdated machinery and money without value.~37~ However, once all concrete wealth (which today consists mainly of the last natural resources) will be gone, abstract wealth will disappear as well. It will, in Marx’s words, "evaporate". The fact that abstract wealth is not real wealth will become obvious, and so will the answer to the question of which wealth modern economic activity has really created. In the end it is nothing but monetary wealth (and even this mainly exists virtually or on accounts) that constitutes a monoculture controlled by a tiny minority. Diversity is suffocated and millions of people are left wondering how to survive. And really: how do you survive with neither resources nor means of production nor money? The nihilism of our economic system is evident. The whole world will be transformed into money – and then it will disappear. After all, money cannot be eaten. What no one seems to consider is the fact that it is impossible to re-transform commodities, money, capital and machinery into nature or concrete wealth. It seems that underlying all "economic development" is the assumption that "resources", the "sources of wealth",~38~ are renewable and everlasting – just like the "growth" they create.~39~ The notion that capitalism and democracy are one is proven a myth by neoliberalism and its "monetary totalitarianism".~40~ The primacy of politics over economy has been lost. Politicians of all parties have abandoned it. It is the corporations that dictate politics. Where corporate interests are concerned, there is no place for democratic convention or community control. Public space disappears. The res publica turns into a res privata, or – as we could say today – a res privata transnationale (in its original Latin meaning, privare means "to deprive"). Only those in power still have rights. They give themselves the licenses they need, from the "license to plunder" to the "license to kill".~41~ Those who get in their way or challenge their "rights" are vilified, criminalized and to an increasing degree defined as "terrorists" or, in the case of defiant governments, as "rogue states" – a label that usually implies threatened or actual military attack, as we can see in the cases of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Syria and Iran in the near future. U.S. President Bush had even spoken of the possibility of "preemptive" nuclear strikes should the U.S. feel endangered by weapons of mass destruction.~42~ The European Union did not object.~43~ Neoliberalism and war are two sides of the same coin.~44~ Free trade, piracy and war are still "an inseparable three" – today maybe more so than ever. War is not only "good for the economy" but is indeed its driving force and can be understood as the "continuation of economy with other means".~45~ War and economy have become almost indistinguishable.~46~ Wars about resources – especially oil and water – have already begun.~47~ The Gulf Wars are the most obvious examples. Militarism once again appears as the "executor of capital accumulation" – potentially everywhere and enduringly.~48~ Human rights and rights of sovereignty have been transferred from people, communities and governments to corporations.~49~ The notion of the people as a sovereign body has practically been abolished. We have witnessed a coup of sorts. The political systems of the West and the nation state as guarantees for and expression of the international division of labor in the modern world system are increasingly dissolving.~50~ Nation states are developing into "periphery states" according to the inferior role they play in the proto-despotic "New World Order".~51~ Democracy appears outdated. After all, it "hinders business".~52~ The "New World Order" implies a new division of labor that does no longer distinguish between North and South, East and West – today, everywhere is South. An according International Law is established which effectively functions from top to bottom ("top-down") and eliminates all local and regional communal rights. And not only that: many such rights are rendered invalid both retroactively and for the future.~53~ The logic of neoliberalism as a sort of totalitarian neo-mercantilism is that all resources, all markets, all money, all profits, all means of production, all "investment opportunities", all rights and all power belong to the corporations only. To paraphrase Richard Sennett: "Everything to the Corporations!"~54~ One might add: "Now!" The corporations are free to do whatever they please with what they get. Nobody is allowed to interfere. Ironically, we are expected to rely on them to find a way out of the crisis we are in. This puts the entire globe at risk since responsibility is something the corporations do not have or know. The times of social contracts are gone.~55~ In fact, pointing out the crisis alone has become a crime and all critique will soon be defined as "terror" and persecuted as such.~56~ IMF Economic Medicine Since the 1980s, it is mainly the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF that act as the enforcers of neoliberalism. These programs are levied against the countries of the South which can be extorted due to their debts. Meanwhile, numerous military interventions and wars help to take possession of the assets that still remain, secure resources, install neoliberalism as the global economic politics, crush resistance movements (which are cynically labeled as "IMF uprisings"), and facilitate the lucrative business of reconstruction.~57~ In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher introduced neoliberalism in Anglo-America. In 1989, the so-called "Washington Consensus" was formulated. It claimed to lead to global freedom, prosperity and economic growth through "deregulation, liberalization and privatization". This has become the credo and promise of all neoliberals. Today we know that the promise has come true for the corporations only – not for anybody else. In the Middle East, the Western support for Saddam Hussein in the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, and the Gulf War of the early 1990s, announced the permanent U.S. presence in the world’s most contested oil region. In continental Europe, neoliberalism began with the crisis in Yugoslavia caused by the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF. The country was heavily exploited, fell apart and finally beset by a civil war over its last remaining resources.~58~ Since the NATO war in 1999, the Balkans are fragmented, occupied and geopolitically under neoliberal control.~59~ The region is of main strategic interest for future oil and gas transport from the Caucasus to the West (for example the "Nabucco" gas pipeline that is supposed to start operating from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and the Balkans by 2011.~60~ The reconstruction of the Balkans is exclusively in the hands of Western corporations. All governments, whether left, right, liberal or green, accept this. There is no analysis of the connection between the politics of neoliberalism, its history, its background and its effects on Europe and other parts of the world. Likewise, there is no analysis of its connection to the new militarism.
Plan
The appropriation of outer space by private entities is unjust. Thus, the plan.
Plan text: Outer space ought to be recognized as a global commons as per the Goehring card. Goehring describes but does not advocate treating space in this way.
Goehring 6/3 - John S. Goehring ~B.A., University of California, Berkeley; J.D., Tulane Law School; LL.M., McGill University, Institute of Air and Space Law) is a space and international law attorney for the Department of Defense and a judge advocate in the United States Air Force Reserve~, "Why Isn’t Outer Space a Global Commons?" Journal of National Security Law and Policy. Vol. 11:573. (June 3, 2021).https://jnslp.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Why'Isnt'Outer'Space'a'Global'Commons'2.pdf AT B. Global Commons as a Constraining Concept In an economic context, as opposed to a military or geopolitical context, "global commons" is typically used to convey a constraining concept. The concept of a "commons" may be thought of as constraining because it is often associated with notions of shared ownership, public governance, or limitations on use. Whether these constraints are viewed positively or negatively is a subjective assessment. The constraining concept is more complicated than the enabling concept because it can reflect two distinct meanings. This is likely a function of its history. "The ‘commons,’ of course, has a long historical and intellectual lineage ranging from the enclosure movement in England, to Garret Hardin’s famous Tragedy of the Commons parable, to Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel-prize winning work on governing common pool resources," observe Professors Foster and Iaione.30 Applying rational-choice theory, Hardin postulated that individual actors "automatically tend to over-exploit and plunder common-pool resources that are freely available to everyone."31 The only possible solution to this dilemma, according to Hardin, was "the enclosure of resources through private property, or, failing that, public regulation."32 Ostrom’s work later "turned ~Hardin’s~ conventional wisdom upside down: complex socio-ecological systems (in which goods are extractable and beneficiaries are hard to exclude) can prove to be sustainable resource domains granted that its stakeholders adopt a polycentric and self-regulated mode of governance."33 As this brief summary suggests, one meaning of "commons" is simply to describe a category of goods.34 This usage was typical prior to Ostrom’s influence.35 In this meaning, a common is a resource to which access is shared, such as an open hunting ground. Some common resources may offer more than one type of benefit. For example, a hunting ground may offer open space for recreation, game to hunt, and trees for building. Some common resources may be subtractable, meaning that use of the resource subtracts from the ability of others to use the resource, while others remain plentiful. Describing a resource in this manner, as a common resource, does not necessarily imply any particular property regime or use limitations.36 A common hunting ground, for instance, may be publicly owned or privately owned. Ostrom helped popularize the term "common pool resource" to describe this general category of resources.37 As Dr. Tepper argues, "~i~t is crucial to differentiate between resources and the legal regime that governs them."38 This is because the term "global commons" – or simply "commons" – can also be used in an economic sense to refer to a form of collective ownership and governance rather than to the economic goods themselves.39 As Professors Cogolati and Woulters observe, "~u~nder Ostrom’s influence, the commons have become more closely connected with the collective self-governance and participatory mechanisms they imply, than with the strict category of (rivalrous and non-excludable) economic goods they used to refer to."40 This may account for the notion held by some that "the commons is less a description of the resource and its characteristics and more of a normative claim to the resource" (emphasis original).41 Used in this way, a commons is a category of property rights based on collective ownership.42 Put simply, "commons" is sometimes used to refer to common property, meaning a resource with more than one owner, and which therefore should be governed collectively. This notion of a commons is sometimes associated with the common heritage of mankind concept, particularly in the context of outer space. As expressed in Article 11(3) of the 1979 Moon Agreement, the common heritage of mankind concept creates a new type of territorial status in which the moon and celestial bodies "are not only in themselves not subject to national appropriation in a territorial sense, but the fruits and resources of which are also deemed to be the property of mankind at large," according to Professor Cheng.43 This principle, as characterized by Professor Christol, not only "protects the proposition what ~sic~ given areas and their resources are open to inclusive use and that there may not be exclusive use," but also "goes farther: it asserts that there must be a sharing of the benefits and of the values derived from the indicated commons."44 In other words, status as the common heritage of mankind does not permit full private property rights in space resources. It should be noted that the concept of the common heritage of mankind is not limited to the outer space domain. In 1970, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution declaring "~t~he sea-bed and ocean floor, and the subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (hereinafter referred to as the area), as well as the resources of the area, are the common heritage of mankind."45 Years later – after the completion of the Moon Agreement – this principle was codified in Article 136 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).46 Importantly, while the area is the common heritage of mankind according to the Convention, the high seas above the area remains free.47 Hence, some may refer to the high seas as a global commons (in the enabling sense), while others may refer to the deep sea bed as a global commons (in the constraining sense) – a clear example of why the term is fraught with misunderstanding. While the concept of common heritage of the seabed and of the Moon and other celestial bodies are linked, the Moon Agreement declares that the content of the common heritage of mankind concept as it applies to States Parties "finds its expression in the provisions of this Agreement" and nowhere else.48 In general, the concept "lacks a precise definition" but "basically wishes to convey the idea that management, exploitation and distribution of the natural resources of the area in question are matters to be decided upon by the international community and are not to be left to the initiative and discretion of individual States and their nationals."49 The United States has not signed the Moon Agreement and rejects the notion that outer space resources are the common heritage of mankind, a position clearly reiterated in Executive Order 13914.50 The last of the five international space treaties to have been negotiated in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), the Moon Agreement is regarded as a failed treaty with only 18 nations having signed on, none of which is China, Russia, or the United States, the three most prominent space-faring States.51 VISITED STATUS OF INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS RELATING TO ACTIVITIES IN OUTER SPACE, UNITED NATIONS OFFICE FOR OUTER SPACE AFFAIRS, https://perma.cc/8VA5-4UW8 (last July 11, 2020). The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, by contrast, has over 100 States Parties.52 Context is essential for discerning the distinction between the constraining concept and the enabling concept. By themselves, "global commons" or "commons" do not necessarily convey one concept or the other. Describing a resource as a "global commons" in an economic context implies a focus on an open access resource and the consumption of that resource; it suggests a resource allocation problem in need of a solution and inevitably invites questions about ownership. In contrast, referring to a global commons in a military or geopolitical context implies a focus on the use of an open access domain and, when used accurately, the lack of ownership is a settled question. Indeed, the distinction between a focus on a thing (res) itself and a focus on the right to use and explore a domain is among the reasons the term "res communis" is not interchangeable with "global commons" when used in a military or geopolitical sense.53
Solvency
Treating space as a commons solves orbital debris. States already agree to a limited regime of this type.
Silverstein and Panda ‘3/9 - Benjamin Silverstein ~research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MA, International Relations, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs BA, International Affairs, George Washington University~ and Ankit Panda ~Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AB, Princeton University~, "Space Is a Great Commons. It’s Time to Treat It as Such." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Web). March 9, 2021. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/09/space-is-great-commons.-it-s-time-to-treat-it-as-such-pub-84018 AT The failure to manage Earth orbits as a commons undermines safety and predictability, exposing space operators to growing risks such as collisions with other satellites and debris. The long-standing debris problem has been building for decades and demands an international solution.¶ Competing states need to coalesce behind a commons-based understanding of Earth orbits to set the table for a governance system to organize space traffic and address rampant debris. New leadership in the United States can spur progress on space governance by affirming that Earth orbits are a great commons. So far, President Joe Biden and his administration have focused on major space projects, but a relatively simple policy declaration that frames Earth orbits as a great commons can support efforts to negotiate space governance models for issues like debris mitigation and remediation. The Biden administration can set the stage to pursue broad space policy goals by establishing a consensus among states, particularly those with the most invested in Earth orbits, that space is a great commons.¶ THE PRESSING NEED FOR SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ The Earth orbits that provide the majority of benefits to states and commercial ventures represent only a tiny fraction of outer space as a whole. Competition for the limited volume of these Earth orbits is especially fierce since two satellites cannot be in the same place at the same time and not all orbits are equally useful for all missions. The number of objects residing in Earth orbits is now at an all-time high, with most new objects introduced into orbits at altitudes of between 400 and 700 kilometers above sea level. Millions of pieces of debris in Earth orbits pose a threat to continuing space operations. For instance, the final U.S. space shuttle missions faced 1-in-300 odds of losing a space vehicle or crew member to orbital debris or micrometeoroid impacts.¶ Collisions with fragments of orbital litter as small as a few millimeters across can ruin satellites and end missions. Current technologies cannot track all of these tiny pieces of debris, leaving space assets at the mercy of undetectable, untraceable, and unpredictable pieces of space junk. Some researchers have determined that the debris population in low Earth orbit is already self-sustaining, meaning that collisions between space objects will produce debris more rapidly than natural forces, like atmospheric drag, can remove it from orbit.¶ States—namely the United States, Russia, China, and India—have exacerbated this debris accumulation trend by testing kinetic anti-satellite capabilities or otherwise purposefully fragmenting their satellites in orbit. These states, along with the rest of the multilateral disarmament community, are currently at an impasse on establishing future space governance mechanisms that can address the debris issue. A portion of this impasse may be attributable to disparate views of the nature of outer space in the international context. Establishing a clear view among negotiating parties that Earth orbits should be treated as a great commons would establish a basis for future agreements that reduce debris-related risks.¶ Beyond debris-generating, kinetic anti-satellite weapons tests, revolutionary operating concepts challenge existing space traffic management practices. For instance, commercial ventures are planning networks of thousands of satellites to provide low-latency connectivity on Earth and deploying them by the dozens. States are following this trend. Some are considering transitioning away from using single (or few) exquisite assets in higher orbits and toward using many satellites in low Earth orbits. These new operational concepts could lead to an increase in collision risks.¶ Without new governance agreements, problems related to debris, heavy orbital traffic, and harmful interference will only intensify. Debris in higher orbits can persist for a century or more. The costs of adapting to increasingly polluted orbits would be immense, and the opportunity costs would be even higher. For instance, all else being equal, hardening satellites against collisions increases their mass and volume, in turn raising launch costs per satellite. These costs, rooted in a failure to govern space as a commons, will be borne by all space actors, including emerging states and commercial entities.¶ EXISTING FORMS OF SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ A well-designed governance system, founded on a widespread understanding of Earth orbits as a great commons, could temper these risks. Currently, space is not wholly unregulated, but existing regulations are limited both in scope and implementation. Many operators pledge to follow national regulations and international guidelines, but decentralized accountability mechanisms limit enforcement. These guidelines also do not cover the full range of potentially risky behaviors in space. For example, while some space operators can maneuver satellites to avoid collisions, there are no compulsory rules or standards on who has the right of way.¶ At the interstate level, seminal multilateral agreements provide some more narrow guidance on what is and is not acceptable in space. Most famously, the Outer Space Treaty affirms that outer space "shall be free for exploration and use by all states without discrimination of any kind" and that "there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies." Similar concepts of Earth orbits being a great commons arise in subsequent international texts. Agreements like the Liability Convention impose fault-based liability for debris-related collisions in space, but it is difficult to prove fault in this regime in part because satellite owners and operators have yet to codify a standard of care in space, and thus the regime does not clearly disincentivize debris creation in orbit. Other rules of behavior in Earth orbits have been more successful in reducing harmful interference between satellite operations, but even these efforts are limited in scope.¶ States have acceded to supranational regulations of the most limited (and thus most valuable) Earth orbits. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) coordinates, but does not authorize, satellite deployments and operations in geosynchronous orbits and manages radiofrequency spectrum assignments in other regions of space to reduce interference between satellites. These coordination activities are underpinned by the ITU’s constitution, which reminds states "that radio frequencies and any associate orbits . . . are limited natural resources," indicating a commons-based approach to governing the radiofrequency spectrum. However, the union’s processes are still adapting to new operational realities in low Earth orbit, and these rules were never designed to address issues like debris.
Space resources must be distributed democratically—this requires challenging private control of outer space.
Levine 15 Nick Levine, MPhil candidate in history of science at the University of Cambridge, 3-21-2015, "Democratize the Universe," Jacobin, https://jacobinmag.com/2015/03/space-industry-extraction-levine The privatization of the Milky Way has begun. Last summer, the bipartisan ASTEROIDS Act was introduced in Congress. The legislation’s aim is to grant US corporations property rights over any natural resources — like the platinum-group metals used in electronics — that they extract from asteroids. The bill took advantage of an ambiguity in the United Nations’ 1967 Outer Space Treaty. That agreement forbade nations and private organizations from claiming territory on celestial bodies, but was unclear about whether the exploitation of their natural resources would be allowed, and if so, on what terms. The legal framework governing the economic development of outer space will have enormous effects on the distribution of wealth and income in the Milky Way and beyond. We could fight for a galactic democracy, where the proceeds of the space economy are distributed widely. Or we could accept the trickle-down astronomics anticipated by the ASTEROIDS Act, which would allow for the concentration of vast amounts of economic and political power in the hands of a few corporations and the most technologically developed nations. Given the pressing problems of inequality and climate change on Earth, the US left has been understandably uninterested in or largely dismissive of any space pursuits. For this reason, it remains unprepared to organize around extraterrestrial economic justice. The Left’s rejection of space has effectively ceded the celestial commons to the business interests who would literally universalize laissez-faire. Organizing around extraterrestrial politics wasn’t always treated as an escapist distraction. In the 1970s, fighting for a celestial commons was a pillar of developing countries’ struggle to create a more equitable economic order. Starting in the 1960s, a coalition of underdeveloped nations, many recently decolonized, asserted their strength in numbers in the United Nations by forming a caucus known as the Group of 77. In the early 1970s, this bloc announced its intention to establish a "new international economic order," which found its expression in a series of UN treaties governing international regions, like sea beds and outer space, that they hoped would spread the economic benefits of the commons more equitably, with special attention to less developed nations. For these countries — as well as for the nervous US business interests that opposed them — their plan to "socialize the moon," as some put it at the time, was the first step toward a more egalitarian distribution of wealth and power in human society. It will be years before the industrialization of outer space is economically viable, if it ever is. But the legal framework that would shape that transition is being worked out now. The ASTEROIDS Act was submitted on behalf of those who would benefit most from a laissez-faire extraterrestrial system. If we leave the discussion about celestial property rights to the business interests that monopolize it now, any dream of economic democracy in outer space will go the way of jetpacks, flying cars, and the fifteen-hour workweek. As Below, So Above Left critics of space proposals make the same mistakes as the most techno-utopian starry-eyed industrialists. From the point of view of the latter, celestial development will provide ultimate salvation to the human race by making us a multi-planetary species; the former see outer space as an infinite void essentially antagonistic to human life, interest in which is only orchestrated for cynical political ends. Each side misconceives extraterrestrial pursuits as qualitatively different from economic activities on Earth. Venturing into space may be a greater technical challenge; it may cost more, be more dangerous, or be a mistaken use of resources. But to understand these prospects in existential terms rather than as a new episode in the familiar history of industrial development and resource extraction — with all the political-strategic dangers and organizing opportunities that come with them — is to be blinded by the space romanticism that is a peculiar vestige of Cold War geopolitics. Whether and how we should go to space are not profound philosophical questions, at least not primarily. What’s at stake is not just the "stature of man," as Hannah Arendt put it, but a political-economic struggle over the future of the celestial commons, which could result in a dramatic intensification of inequality — or a small step for humankind toward a more egalitarian state of affairs on our current planet. Undoubtedly, there are good reasons to be skeptical about going to space. Some have argued that it shifts attention away from solving the difficult problems of economic and environmental justice on Earth — think of Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken-word poem "Whitey on the Moon," which juxtaposes the deprivation of the American underclass with the vast resources diverted to space. Scott-Heron’s critique is powerful, but it’s important to remember that he was denouncing an unjust economic system. He wasn’t issuing a timeless condemnation of space pursuits as such. Whether the aims of providing for all and developing outer space are mutually exclusive depends on the political forces on the ground. We might also question whether mining asteroids would be detrimental to our current planet’s environment in the medium term. If we don’t find a renewable way to blast off into outer space, the exploitation of these resources could lead to an intensification of, not a move away from, the fossil-fuel economy. If the environmental impact of space mining turns out to be large, it would be analogous to fracking — a technological development that gives us access to new resources, but with devastating ecological side effects — and ought to be opposed on similar grounds. On the other hand, some speculate that mining the Moon’s Helium-3 reserves, for example, could provide an abundant source of clean energy. The terrestrial environmental impact of space activity remains an open question that must be explored before we stake our hopes on the economic development of outer space. Philosophers have suggested that we might have ethical duties to preserve the "natural" states of celestial bodies. Others fear that our activities might unknowingly wipe out alien microbial life. We should remain sensitive to the aesthetic and cultural value of outer space, as well as the potential for extinction and the exhaustion of resources misleadingly proclaimed to be limitless. But if the Left rejects space on these grounds we abandon its fate to the will of private interests. These concerns shouldn’t cause us to write off space altogether — rather, they should motivate us even more to fight for the careful, democratic use of celestial resources for the benefit of all. There is also reason to be cautiously optimistic about extending economic activity to outer space. For one, the resources there — whether platinum-group metals useful in electronics, or fuels that could be central to the semi-independent functioning of an outer space economy — have the potential to raise our standards of living. Imagine, a superabundance of asteroid metals that are scarce on Earth, like platinum, driving the sort of automation that could expand output and reduce the need to work. Of course, there’s nothing inevitable about the benefits of productivity gains being distributed widely, as we’ve seen in the United States over the past forty years. This is a problem not limited to space, and the myth of the "final frontier" must not distract us from the already existing problems of wealth and income distribution on Earth. While the industrialization of the solar system isn’t a panacea for all economic ills, it does offer a significant organizing opportunity, since it will force a confrontation over the future of the vast celestial commons. The democratic possibilities of such a struggle have been recognized before: one conservative American citizens’ group in the 1970s called a progressive UN space treaty a "vital component of Third World demands for massive redistribution of wealth so as ultimately to equate the economic positions of the two hemispheres." Many in the 1970s identified the egalitarian potential in the development of outer space, and the Left must not overlook it today. Back to the Future One of the Group of 77’s major goals was to apply some of the redistributive functions of the welfare state on a global scale. In 1974, that coalition issued a "Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order," which called for a fairer system of global trade and resource distribution, one that could alleviate historical inequality. One of the battlegrounds for the Group of 77 was the negotiation over extraterrestrial property rights. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, signed by over ninety countries in the heat of the first sprint to the moon, rejected the notion that celestial bodies fell under the legal principle of res nullius — meaning that outer space was empty territory that could be claimed for a nation through occupation. It forbade the "national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means" of outer space. But the treaty was not just restrictive. It also had a positive requirement for extraterrestrial conduct: "The exploration and use of outer space," it declared, "shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind." However, nobody knew what this would mean in practice: was it a call for egalitarian economics, or an empty proclamation of liberal benevolence? Complicating matters, it was unclear whether the extraction and sale of natural resources from outer space fell under the category of "appropriation," which had been forbidden. And what exactly was this benefit to all countries that our outer space pursuits were supposed to bring? How would its distribution be enforced? Which interpretation would win out was more a question of political power than of esoteric legal maneuvers. The Group of 77 took an activist approach to these issues, proposing amendments to the Outer Space Treaty regime that would spread the economic benefits of the celestial commons to less developed countries that did not have the resources to get to space, let alone mine it. Thus in 1970, the Argentine delegate to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space proposed to legally designate outer space and its resources "the common heritage of mankind." First applied in negotiations over maritime law a few years earlier, the "common heritage" concept was intended to give legal grounding to the peaceful international governance of the commons. As an alternative to the laissez-faire approach advocated by many private interests, the "common heritage" principle also provided a legal framework for the democratic distribution of revenues derived from the international commons. In 1973, the Indian delegation to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space tried to put this idea into celestial practice, proposing an amendment to the Outer Space Treaty that called for equitable sharing of space benefits, particularly with developing countries. The Brazilian delegate to the committee summarized the group’s position: "It does not seem justifiable . . . that space activities . . . should evolve in a climate of total laissez-faire, which would conceal under the cloak of rationality new ways for an abusive exercise of power by those who exert control over technology." Despite opposition from both the Soviet Union and the United States, the final draft of this new outer space agreement included a version of the "common heritage of mankind" doctrine. When the finalized treaty was brought to the US in 1979 for ratification, business groups balked. The vision of egalitarian galactic democracy suggested by the document was rightly seen as contrary to narrow American interests. The United Technologies Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of aircrafts and other heavy machinery (including the Black Hawk helicopter) took out a large advertisement in the Washington Post and a number of other newspapers, warning that the treaty would establish an "OPEC-like monopoly, require mandatory transfer of technology, and impose high international taxes on profits as a way of shifting wealth from the developed to the less developed countries." The president of the corporation, Alexander Haig, also testified against the treaty in Congress in 1979, warning that "the common heritage concept expressed in the treaty underlies Third World efforts directed at a fundamental redistribution of global wealth." Haig was hired as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state in 1981, and political opposition to the bill forced NASA’s chief counsel to abandon defense of the treaty. In the end, the Moon Treaty, as the 1979 document came to be known, failed to gain more than a few signatories, leaving open the question of how the benefits of outer space were to be shared. In 1988, a different coalition of developing countries added the question of space benefits to the UN outer space committee’s agenda. But they failed to gain traction, and by 1993 they had to concede, as two long-time delegates to the outer space committee put it, that "their attempt ~at~ a redistributive revolution in international space cooperation had failed." The conversation had shifted from the distribution of economic benefits to a narrower emphasis on international scientific coordination and development aid. This retreat culminated in a 1996 declaration that limited the interpretation of the "benefit" clause of the Outer Space Treaty to vague promises to help less developed countries improve their space technologies. The ultimate failure of the Moon Treaty was representative of broader developments in international politics, as the influence of the Group of 77 declined. The fact that the structural adjustment policies of the Washington Consensus won out over the Third World’s redistributive goals was the result of contingent factors — the oil shock’s exacerbation of debt crises, for instance — but it also indicated the limits of the power the Group of 77 had wielded in the first place. In October 2014, the UN outer space committee issued a press release summarizing its most recent session. Its headline: "Outer Space Benefits Must Not Be Allowed to Widen Global Gap between Economic, Social Inequality, Fourth Committee Told." Despite paying lip service to its past concerns, the outer space committee now emphasizes equal access, voluntary technology transfers, and modest development aid over the direct redistributive approach it took in the 1970s. This shift from struggling for equality of outcome to equality of opportunity, with no accountability mechanism in place to ensure even the latter, represents a striking regression. The egalitarian dreams of the "revolution of the colonized" in the UN, as it was called at the time, have been forgotten. The Empire Strikes Back Recent US plans for outer space development, shaped overwhelmingly by Silicon Valley’s intuitions and capital, stand in stark contrast to the futuristic democratic dreams of the Group of 77. The most prominent of these entrepreneurial visions has been Elon Musk’s plan to colonize Mars. For now, international law seems to unequivocally forbid territorial claims on Mars and other celestial bodies. The legal status of resource extraction, on the other hand, remains an open question. A vocal group of entrepreneurs is hoping to set a precedent for the private appropriation of natural resources from asteroids, without internationally redistributive obligations. Planetary Resources, an asteroid-mining company whose backers include Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and James Cameron, plans to launch satellites to prospect for valuable asteroids in the next two years. Another US firm, Deep Space Industries, will launch exploratory satellites as soon as next year. These entrepreneurs hope to extract the valuable platinum-group metals, essential for manufacturing electronics, that are rare on Earth. Sensationalist articles on space mining will tell you about an asteroid worth $20 trillion. Investors also believe that asteroids might provide water that could be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen in space, yielding air for astronauts and fuel for their ships. This could facilitate a dramatic acceleration in the economic development of outer space. The CEO of Deep Space Industries said he hopes asteroids near Earth will be "like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century — a key resource located near where it was needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is our strategy." Another entrepreneur called the industrialization of outer space the "biggest wealth-creation opportunity in modern history." Before this value can be generated, however, the legal wrinkles have to be ironed out. And so in the summer of 2014, the ASTEROIDS Act was introduced in the House of Representatives to "promote the right of United States commercial entities to explore and utilize resources from asteroids in outer space, in accordance with the existing international obligations of the United States, free from harmful interference, and to transfer or sell such resources." The legislation was intended to clarify US interpretations of international space law, explicitly granting American companies the right to extract asteroid resources and bring them to market. The conclusion of Congress’s last session means that the bill will have to be reintroduced for it to move forward, and it is uncertain exactly when and how this will happen. But its appearance marked another clear attempt to unilaterally push international norms toward the free extraction of outer space resources, with limited democratic responsibilities attached — and it will not be the last. Joanne Gabrynowicz, editor emerita of the Journal of Space Law, said that an adviser to Planetary Resources had drafted the bill. Deep Space Industries also sent a letter supporting it directly to the space subcommittee of the House of Representatives. Moreover, Congressman Bill Posey, a cosponsor of the act, represents Florida, a state that Gabrynowicz pointed out has recently been forced to try to attract commercial space business — a direct response to the economic hardship caused by the decommissioning NASA’s space shuttle program. Such extraterrestrial special interests will no doubt continue to exert legislative pressure. In addition to asteroids, companies are investing millions in mining the moon, despite legal uncertainties. One such company, Moon Express, has already received a $10 million data-sharing contract from NASA. One of that company’s founders, a former dot-com billionaire, told the Los Angeles Times: There is strong legal precedent and consensus of "finders, keepers" for resources that are liberated through private investment, and the same will be true on the moon. You don’t have to own land to have ownership of resources you unlock from it. Moon Express will use existing precedents of peaceful presence and exploration set by the US government forty years ago. This redeployment of the finders-keepers principle is anathema to the redistributive regime imagined by the Group of 77. Private companies like Planetary Resources and Moon Express, with support from the federal government, are betting not only on the viability of space industrialization, but also on their ability to push through a legal regime that will validate their property claims on their terms. But the universalization of laissez-faire is not inevitable. Final Frontier Thesis The history of the Moon Treaty serves as a reminder that outer space is not just a screen onto which we project techno-utopian fantasies or existential anxieties about the infinite void. It has been, and will continue to be, a site of concrete struggle over economic power. The politics of the present are undoubtedly different from those of the 1970s. The egalitarian project of the Group of 77 has given way to BRICS-style market liberalism. Global capital has gained power where international labor efforts have stagnated. Domestic inequalities have skyrocketed. The rapid proliferation of information technologies has temporarily masked the reality that the future, to paraphrase William Gibson, is not being very evenly distributed. Without international political organization to challenge galactic market fundamentalism, a twenty-first century space odyssey could mean the concentration of even more wealth and income in the hands of a few powerful corporations and the most technologically advanced countries. At the same time, and for the same reasons, the prospect of preserving the final frontier as a celestial commons presents an opportunity to fight for a more democratic political economy. Sharing the benefits of the celestial commons is key to expanding democracy to a galactic scale. One time-tested means of distributing the benefits of natural-resource extraction universally is the sovereign wealth fund, which Alaska uses to deliver oil revenue to its residents. As an international commons, outer space offers an opportunity to experiment with such redistributive mechanisms beyond the traditional confines of the nation-state. Organizing around an issue of such scale may seem utopian, but it’s also necessary. From regulating capital to mitigating climate change, the problems that confront us are inherently global in scope and require commensurate strategies. At the very least, the global left ought to demand the creation of an independent Galactic Wealth Fund to manage the proceeds of outer space resources on behalf of all human beings. At first, it would amount to little, divided up among all of us. But as the space economy grows relative to the terrestrial one, social dividends from the Galactic Wealth Fund could provide the basis for a truly universal basic income. This is just one component of a broader platform for galactic democracy that must be developed collectively. Extraterrestrial economic justice — not just shiny technological advances — will be central to any truly egalitarian politics in the twenty-first century. It’s time to start building a democratic futurism.
States can extend existing models to govern space, but recognition of space as a commons is key.
Silverstein and Panda ‘3/9 - Benjamin Silverstein ~research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MA, International Relations, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs BA, International Affairs, George Washington University~ and Ankit Panda ~Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AB, Princeton University~, "Space Is a Great Commons. It’s Time to Treat It as Such." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Web). March 9, 2021. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/09/space-is-great-commons.-it-s-time-to-treat-it-as-such-pub-84018 AT BUILDING ON PRIOR MODELS FOR MANAGING COMMONS¶ The histories of other great commons provide lessons on how to manage shared space resources meaningfully and effectively. Efforts to minimize damage to other great commons—like the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution and subsequent protocols—offer guidance on how to resolve compliance issues. Notably, the negotiations on the original convention on air pollution involved, among others, the United States and the Soviet Union. This suggests that states can pursue mutual benefits in areas considered great commons even under competitive conditions. More recent negotiations on the convention’s accompanying protocols show that these competing states can even agree on financing a monitoring regime to support progress.¶ Existing conventions and implementing agreements indicate that states can reach valuable commitments to manage the Earth’s great commons. These governance models protect state interests and preserve the commons themselves. These principles apply to space, but progress on establishing more encompassing space governance principles, enforcement mechanisms, and dispute resolution procedures hinges on states sharing the fundamental view that space is a great commons. Reaching such a consensus is an important first step.¶ New leadership in prominent spacefaring states can revitalize efforts to recognize space as a commons and can build on established legal standards to pursue commons-related principles for governing Earth orbits. Space actors do not have to resolve all their competing interests based on the debris problem. But negligence, mismanagement, or poorly designed rules may spell disaster for Earth orbits. As a more diverse range of actors with space-based interests emerges, no single actor will be able to unilaterally impose universal rules. States can, however, negotiate agreements to manage commons areas to better pursue national objectives. The only way to effectively govern state and commercial space activities is to settle on and abide by common norms or rules.¶ New conventions or regulatory mechanisms for governing Earth orbits will not appear overnight, but states can build toward these goals by clarifying their commitments to treat space as a commons and pursuing governance arrangements that reflect this commitment. New policies in the United States should reflect that Earth orbits are a great commons.
Treating space as a commons is key to ethical exploration and human survival.
Fisk N.D. - L. A. Fisk ~President of the Committee on Space Research, chartered by the International Council for Scientific Unions~, "Space as a Global Commons," UNOOSA (Web). ND. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://www.unoosa.org/documents/pdf/hlf/1st'hlf'Dubai/Presentations/26.pdf AT There is an urgency to consider and act on this issue. • With each passing year, our technological civilization becomes increasingly dependent on the satellites in orbit. • The primal threats to our civilization – global climate change and space weather – can only be understood, and dealt with by using the global perspective of observations from space. • We need to recognize also that we are extending the human presence, whether through robotic spacecraft or eventually with humans, throughout our solar system. And we have a commitment as a civilization to behave responsibility in this endeavor. To protect the environments we will explore, and to protect ourselves against any contamination of our planet that results from this exploration. Space as a Global Commons It follows therefore that, given the centrality of space for the future of our civilization, we need to have policies and practices in place, which are shared by all spacefaring nations, that will allow and encourage each and every nation that desires to and has the capability to use and to explore space for peaceful purposes, to do so. We thus need to recognize, encourage, and enable space as a global commons. A ‘commons’ in the English language is a piece of land owned by and used by all members of a community, as in a pasture used by all residents of a village. Many nations of the world view space as a global commons, a resource not owned by any one nation but crucial to the future of all humankind.
Private companies are cramming satellites into the Earth’s orbit, which are quickly becoming defunct pieces of "space junk."
Therese Wood, 20 - ("Who owns our orbit: Just how many satellites are there in space?," World Economic Forum, 10-23-2020, 12-8-2021https:www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/visualizing-easrth-satellites-sapce-spacex)AW There are nearly 6,000 satellites circling the Earth, but only 40
AND
175 satellites in the span of one month, from August to September 2020
Increasing space debris levels inevitably set off a chain of collisions.
away, meaning that there is still time to develop a solution.52
Collisions make orbit unusable, causing nuclear war, mass starvation, and economic destruction.
Les Johnson 13, Deputy Manager for NASA's Advanced Concepts Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Co-Investigator for the JAXA T-Rex Space Tether Experiment and PI of NASA's ProSEDS Experiment, Master's Degree in Physics from Vanderbilt University, Popular Science Writer, and NASA Technologist, Frequent Contributor to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Sodety and Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Space Society, the World Future Society, and MENSA, Sky Alert!: When Satellites Fail, p. 9-12 ~language modified~ Whatever the initial cause, the result may be the same. A satellite destroyed
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, our military advantage over potential adversaries would be dramatically reduced or eliminated.
Advantage 2: Corporate Colonialism
Tech-billionaires advance a vision of private space colonization as a source of infinite resources to cure society’s ills. This rationalizes unrestrained consumption and replicates the logic of imperialism.
Mccormick 21 ~Ted McCormick writes about the history of science, empire, and economic thought. He has a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and teaches at Concordia University in Montreal. "The billionaire space race reflects a colonial mindset that fails to imagine a different world". 8-15-2021. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-billionaire-space-race-reflects-a-colonial-mindset-that-fails-to-imagine-a-different-world-165235. Accessed 12-15-2021; marlborough JH~ It was a time of political uncertainty, cultural conflict and social change. Private
AND
in defiance of all limits. We are struggling with these consequences today.
If only wealthy elites can tap the vast resources of outer space, we lock in a permanent and unconscionable inequality. Private space colonization amounts to unchecked exploitation and authoritarian corporate control of future settlements. Spencer ‘17
, our rallying cry should be this: Keep the red planet red!
This private expansion into space results in corporate colonization of planets that undermines the interests of the rest of humanity. Spencer ’17
Spencer, Keith A. ~senior editor at Salon~"Against Mars-a-Lago: Why SpaceX's Mars Colonization Plan Should Terrify You." Salon, Salon.com, Oct. 8 2017, https://www.salon.com/2017/10/08/against-mars-a-lago-why-spacexs-mars-colonization-plan-should-terrify-you/. When CEO Elon Musk announced last month that his aerospace company SpaceX would be sending cargo missions to Mars by 2022 — the first step in his tourism-driven colonization plan — a small cheer went up among space and science enthusiasts. Writing in the New York Post, Stephen Carter called Musk’s vision "inspiring," a salve for politically contentious times. "Our species has turned its vision inward; our image of human possibility has grown cramped and pessimistic," Carter wrote: "We dream less of reaching the stars than of winning the next election; less of maturing as a species than of shunning those who are different; less of the blessings of an advanced technological tomorrow than of an apocalyptic future marked by a desperate struggle to survive. Maybe a focus on the possibility of reaching our nearest planetary neighbor will help change all that." The Post editorial reflected a growing media consensus that humankind’s ultimate destiny is the colonization of the solar system — yet on a private basis. American government leaders generally agree with this vision. Obama egged on the privatization of NASA by legislating a policy shift to private commercial spaceflight, awarding government contracts to private companies like SpaceX to shuttle supplies to the International Space Station. "Governments can develop new technology and do some of the exciting early exploration but in the long run it's the private sector that finds ways to make profit, finds ways to expand humanity," said Dr. S. Pete Worden, the director of the NASA Ames Research lab, in 2012. And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote of his ambitions to bring American-style capitalism to the stars: "In the years to come, American industry must be the first to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-Earth orbit, to expand the sphere of the economy beyond this blue marble," Pence wrote. One wonders if these luminaries know their history. There has be no instance in which a private corporation became a colonizing power that did not end badly for everyone besides the shareholders. The East India Company is perhaps the finest portent of Musk’s Martian ambitions. In 1765, the East India Company forced the Mughal emperor to sign a legal agreement that would essentially permit their company to become the de facto rulers of Bengal. The East India Company then collected taxes and used its private army, which was over 200,000 strong by the early 19th century, to repress those who got in the way of its profit margins. "It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath," writes William Dalrymple in the Guardian. "It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history." The East India Company came to colonize much of the Indian subcontinent. In the modern era, an era in which the right of corporations to do what they want, unencumbered, has become a sacrosanct right in the eyes of many politicians, the lessons of the East India Company seem to have been all but forgotten. As Dalrymple writes: Democracy as we know it was considered an advance over feudalism because of the power that it gave the commoners to share in collective governance. To privately colonize a nation, much less a planet, means ceding governance and control back to corporations whose interest is not ours, and indeed, is always at odds with workers and residents — particularly in a resource-limited environment like a spaceship or the red planet. Even if, as Musk suggests, a private foundation is put in charge of running the show on Mars, their interests will inherently be at odds with the workers and employees involved. After all, a private foundation is not a democracy; and as major philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation illustrate, often do the bidding of their rich donors, and take an important role in ripening industries and regions for exploitation by Western corporations. Yet Mars’ colonization is a bit different than Bengal, namely in that it is not merely underdeveloped; it is undeveloped. How do you start an entirely new economy on a virgin world with no industry? After all, Martian resource extraction and trade with Earth is not feasible; the cost of transporting material across the solar system is astronomical, and there are no obvious minerals on Mars that we don’t already have in abundance on Earth. The only basis for colonization of Mars that Musk can conceive of is one based on tourism: the rich pay an amount — Musk quotes the ticket price at $200,000 if he can get 1 million tourists to pay that — that entitles them to a round-trip ticket. And while they’re on Mars and traveling to it, they luxuriate: Musk has assured that the trip would be "fun." This is what makes Musk’s Mars vision so different than, say, the Apollo missions or the International Space Station. This isn’t really exploration for humanity’s sake — there’s not that much science assumed here, as there was in the Moon missions. Musk wants to build the ultimate luxury package, exclusively for the richest among us. Musk isn’t trying to build something akin to Matt Damon’s spartan research base in "The Martian." He wants to build Mars-a-Lago. And an economy based on tourism, particularly high-end tourism, needs employees — even if a high degree of automation is assumed. And as I’ve written about before, that means a lot of labor at the lowest cost possible. Imagine signing away years of your life to be a housekeeper in the Mars-a-Lago hotel, with your communications, water, food, energy usage, even oxygen tightly managed by your employer, and no government to file a grievance to if your employer cuts your wages, harasses you, cuts off your oxygen. Where would Mars-a-Lago's employees turn if their rights were impinged upon? Oh wait, this planet is run privately? You have no rights. Musk's vision for Mars colonization is inherently authoritarian. The potential for the existence of the employees of the Martian tourism industry to slip into something resembling indentured servitude, even slavery, cannot be underestimated. We have government regulations for a reason on Earth — to protect us from the fresh horror Musk hopes to export to Mars. If he's considered these questions, he doesn't seem to care; for Musk, the devil's in the technological and financial details. The social and political are pretty uninteresting to him. This is unsurprising; accounts from those who have worked closely with him hint that he, like many CEOs, may be a sociopath. Even as a space enthusiast, I cannot get excited about the private colonization of Mars. You shouldn’t be either. This is not a giant leap for mankind; this is the next great leap in plutocracy. The mere notion that global wealth is so unevenly distributed that a small but sufficient sum of rich people could afford this trip is unsettling, indicative of the era of astonishing economic inequality in which we suffer. Thomas Frank, writing in Harpers, once wrote of a popular t-shirt he sighted while picnicking in a small West Virginia coal town: "Mine it union or keep it in the ground." The idea, of course, is that the corporations interested in resource extraction do not care whatsoever about their workers’ health, safety, or well-being; the union had their interests at heart, and was able to negotiate for safety, job security, and so on. I’d like to see a similar t-shirt or bumper sticker emerge among scientists and space enthusiasts: "Explore Mars democratically, or keep it in the sky."
Neoliberalism destroys ethics, locks in poverty and exploitation, decimates the environment, and causes war.
Werlhof 15 – Claudia, Professor of Political Science/Women's Studies, University Innsbruck (Austria), 2015 ("Neoliberal Globalization: Is There an Alternative to Plundering the Earth?" Global Research, May 25th, Available Online at http://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberal-globalization-is-there-an-alternative-to-plundering-the-earth/24403) At the center of both old and new economic liberalism lies: Self-interest and individualism; segregation of ethical principles and economic affairs, in other words: a process of ‘de-bedding’ economy from society; economic rationality as a mere cost-benefit calculation and profit maximization; competition as the essential driving force for growth and progress; specialization and the replacement of a subsistence economy with profit-oriented foreign trade (‘comparative cost advantage’); and the proscription of public (state) interference with market forces.~3~ Where the new economic liberalism outdoes the old is in its global claim. Today’s economic liberalism functions as a model for each and everyone: all parts of the economy, all sectors of society, of life/nature itself. As a consequence, the once "de-bedded" economy now claims to "im-bed" everything, including political power. Furthermore, a new twisted "economic ethics" (and with it a certain idea of "human nature") emerges that mocks everything from so-called do-gooders to altruism to selfless help to care for others to a notion of responsibility.~4~ This goes as far as claiming that the common good depends entirely on the uncontrolled egoism of the individual and, especially, on the prosperity of transnational corporations. The allegedly necessary "freedom" of the economy – which, paradoxically, only means the freedom of corporations – hence consists of a freedom from responsibility and commitment to society. The maximization of profit itself must occur within the shortest possible time; this means, preferably, through speculation and "shareholder value". It must meet as few obstacles as possible. Today, global economic interests outweigh not only extra-economic concerns but also national economic considerations since corporations today see themselves beyond both community and nation.~5~ A "level playing field" is created that offers the global players the best possible conditions. This playing field knows of no legal, social, ecological, cultural or national "barriers".~6~ As a result, economic competition plays out on a market that is free of all non-market, extra-economic or protectionist influences – unless they serve the interests of the big players (the corporations), of course. The corporations’ interests – their maximal growth and progress – take on complete priority. This is rationalized by alleging that their well-being means the well-being of small enterprises and workshops as well. The difference between the new and the old economic liberalism can first be articulated in quantitative terms: after capitalism went through a series of ruptures and challenges – caused by the "competing economic system", the crisis of capitalism, post-war "Keynesianism" with its social and welfare state tendencies, internal mass consumer demand (so-called Fordism), and the objective of full employment in the North. The liberal economic goals of the past are now not only euphorically resurrected but they are also "globalized". The main reason is indeed that the competition between alternative economic systems is gone. However, to conclude that this confirms the victory of capitalism and the "golden West" over "dark socialism" is only one possible interpretation. Another – opposing – interpretation is to see the "modern world system" (which contains both capitalism and socialism) as having hit a general crisis which causes total and merciless competition over global resources while leveling the way for investment opportunities, i.e. the valorization of capital.~7~ The ongoing globalization of neoliberalism demonstrates which interpretation is right. Not least, because the differences between the old and the new economic liberalism can not only be articulated in quantitative terms but in qualitative ones too. What we are witnessing are completely new phenomena: instead of a democratic "complete competition" between many small enterprises enjoying the freedom of the market, only the big corporations win. In turn, they create new market oligopolies and monopolies of previously unknown dimensions. The market hence only remains free for them, while it is rendered unfree for all others who are condemned to an existence of dependency (as enforced producers, workers and consumers) or excluded from the market altogether (if they have neither anything to sell or buy). About fifty percent of the world’s population fall into this group today, and the percentage is rising.~8~ Anti-trust laws have lost all power since the transnational corporations set the norms. It is the corporations – not "the market" as an anonymous mechanism or "invisible hand" – that determine today’s rules of trade, for example prices and legal regulations. This happens outside any political control. Speculation with an average twenty percent profit margin edges out honest producers who become "unprofitable".~9~ Money becomes too precious for comparatively non-profitable, long-term projects, or projects that only – how audacious! – serve a good life. Money instead "travels upwards" and disappears. Financial capital determines more and more what the markets are and do.~10~ By delinking the dollar from the price of gold, money creation no longer bears a direct relationship to production".~11~ Moreover, these days most of us are – exactly like all governments – in debt. It is financial capital that has all the money – we have none.~12~ Small, medium, even some bigger enterprises are pushed out of the market, forced to fold or swallowed by transnational corporations because their performances are below average in comparison to speculation – rather: spookulation – wins. The public sector, which has historically been defined as a sector of not-for-profit economy and administration, is "slimmed" and its "profitable" parts ("gems") handed to corporations (privatized). As a consequence, social services that are necessary for our existence disappear. Small and medium private businesses – which, until recently, employed eighty percent of the workforce and provided normal working conditions – are affected by these developments as well. The alleged correlation between economic growth and secure employment is false. When economic growth is accompanied by the mergers of businesses, jobs are lost.~13~ If there are any new jobs, most are precarious, meaning that they are only available temporarily and badly paid. One job is usually not enough to make a living.~14~ This means that the working conditions in the North become akin to those in the South, and the working conditions of men akin to those of women – a trend diametrically opposed to what we have always been told. Corporations now leave for the South (or East) to use cheap – and particularly female – labor without union affiliation. This has already been happening since the 1970s in the "Export Processing Zones" (EPZs, "world market factories" or "maquiladoras"), where most of the world’s computer chips, sneakers, clothes and electronic goods are produced.~15~ The EPZs lie in areas where century-old colonial-capitalist and authoritarian-patriarchal conditions guarantee the availability of cheap labor.~16~ The recent shift of business opportunities from consumer goods to armaments is a particularly troubling development.~17~ It is not only commodity production that is "outsourced" and located in the EPZs, but service industries as well. This is a result of the so-called Third Industrial Revolution, meaning the development of new information and communication technologies. Many jobs have disappeared entirely due to computerization, also in administrative fields.~18~ The combination of the principles of "high tech" and "low wage"/"no wage" (always denied by "progress" enthusiasts) guarantees a "comparative cost advantage" in foreign trade. This will eventually lead to "Chinese wages" in the West. A potential loss of Western consumers is not seen as a threat. A corporate economy does not care whether consumers are European, Chinese or Indian. The means of production become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially since finance capital – rendered precarious itself – controls asset values ever more aggressively. New forms of private property are created, not least through the "clearance" of public property and the transformation of formerly public and small-scale private services and industries to a corporate business sector. This concerns primarily fields that have long been (at least partly) excluded from the logic of profit – e.g. education, health, energy or water supply/disposal. New forms of so-called enclosures emerge from today’s total commercialization of formerly small-scale private or public industries and services, of the "commons", and of natural resources like oceans, rain forests, regions of genetic diversity or geopolitical interest (e.g. potential pipeline routes), etc.~19~ As far as the new virtual spaces and communication networks go, we are witnessing frantic efforts to bring these under private control as well.~20~ All these new forms of private property are essentially created by (more or less) predatory forms of appropriation. In this sense, they are a continuation of the history of so-called original accumulation which has expanded globally, in accordance with to the motto: "Growth through expropriation!"~21~ Most people have less and less access to the means of production, and so the dependence on scarce and underpaid work increases. The destruction of the welfare state also destroys the notion that individuals can rely on the community to provide for them in times of need. Our existence relies exclusively on private, i.e. expensive, services that are often of much worse quality and much less reliable than public services. (It is a myth that the private always outdoes the public.) What we are experiencing is undersupply formerly only known by the colonial South. The old claim that the South will eventually develop into the North is proven wrong. It is the North that increasingly develops into the South. We are witnessing the latest form of "development", namely, a world system of underdevelopment.~22~ Development and underdevelopment go hand in hand.~23~ This might even dawn on "development aid" workers soon. It is usually women who are called upon to counterbalance underdevelopment through increased work ("service provisions") in the household. As a result, the workload and underpay of women takes on horrendous dimensions: they do unpaid work inside their homes and poorly paid "housewifized" work outside.~24~ Yet, commercialization does not stop in front of the home’s doors either. Even housework becomes commercially co-opted ("new maid question"), with hardly any financial benefits for the women who do the work.~25~ Not least because of this, women are increasingly coerced into prostitution, one of today’s biggest global industries.~26~ This illustrates two things: a) how little the "emancipation" of women actually leads to "equal terms" with men; and b) that "capitalist development" does not imply increased "freedom" in wage labor relations, as the Left has claimed for a long time.~27~ If the latter were the case, then neoliberalism would mean the voluntary end of capitalism once it reaches its furthest extension. This, however, does not appear likely. Today, hundreds of millions of quasi-slaves, more than ever before, exist in the "world system."~28~ The authoritarian model of the "Export Processing Zones" is conquering the East and threatening the North. The redistribution of wealth runs ever more – and with ever accelerated speed – from the bottom to the top. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. The middle classes disappear. This is the situation we are facing. It becomes obvious that neoliberalism marks not the end of colonialism but, to the contrary, the colonization of the North. This new "colonization of the world"~29~ points back to the beginnings of the "modern world system" in the "long 16th century", when the conquering of the Americas, their exploitation and colonial transformation allowed for the rise and "development" of Europe.~30~ The so-called "children’s diseases" of modernity keep on haunting it, even in old age. They are, in fact, the main feature of modernity’s latest stage. They are expanding instead of disappearing. Where there is no South, there is no North; where there is no periphery, there is no center; where there is no colony, there is no – in any case no "Western" – civilization.~31~ Austria is part of the world system too. It is increasingly becoming a corporate colony (particularly of German corporations). This, however, does not keep it from being an active colonizer itself, especially in the East.~32~ Social, cultural, traditional and ecological considerations are abandoned and give way to a mentality of plundering. All global resources that we still have – natural resources, forests, water, genetic pools – have turned into objects of utilization. Rapid ecological destruction through depletion is the consequence. If one makes more profit by cutting down trees than by planting them, then there is no reason not to cut them.~33~ Neither the public nor the state interferes, despite global warming and the obvious fact that the clearing of the few remaining rain forests will irreversibly destroy the earth’s climate – not to mention the many other negative effects of such actions.~34~ Climate, animal, plants, human and general ecological rights are worth nothing compared to the interests of the corporations – no matter that the rain forest is not a renewable resource and that the entire earth’s ecosystem depends on it. If greed, and the rationalism with which it is economically enforced, really was an inherent anthropological trait, we would have never even reached this day. The commander of the Space Shuttle that circled the earth in 2005 remarked that "the center of Africa was burning". She meant the Congo, in which the last great rain forest of the continent is located. Without it there will be no more rain clouds above the sources of the Nile. However, it needs to disappear in order for corporations to gain free access to the Congo’s natural resources that are the reason for the wars that plague the region today. After all, one needs diamonds and coltan for mobile phones. Today, everything on earth is turned into commodities, i.e. everything becomes an object of "trade" and commercialization (which truly means liquidation, the transformation of all into liquid money). In its neoliberal stage it is not enough for capitalism to globally pursue less cost-intensive and preferably "wageless" commodity production. The objective is to transform everyone and everything into commodities, including life itself.~35~ We are racing blindly towards the violent and absolute conclusion of this "mode of production", namely total capitalization/liquidation by "monetarization".~36~ We are not only witnessing perpetual praise of the market – we are witnessing what can be described as "market fundamentalism". People believe in the market as if it was a god. There seems to be a sense that nothing could ever happen without it. Total global maximized accumulation of money/capital as abstract wealth becomes the sole purpose of economic activity. A "free" world market for everything has to be established – a world market that functions according to the interests of the corporations and capitalist money. The installment of such a market proceeds with dazzling speed. It creates new profit possibilities where they have not existed before, e.g. in Iraq, Eastern Europe or China. One thing remains generally overlooked: the abstract wealth created for accumulation implies the destruction of nature as concrete wealth. The result is a "hole in the ground" and next to it a garbage dump with used commodities, outdated machinery and money without value.~37~ However, once all concrete wealth (which today consists mainly of the last natural resources) will be gone, abstract wealth will disappear as well. It will, in Marx’s words, "evaporate". The fact that abstract wealth is not real wealth will become obvious, and so will the answer to the question of which wealth modern economic activity has really created. In the end it is nothing but monetary wealth (and even this mainly exists virtually or on accounts) that constitutes a monoculture controlled by a tiny minority. Diversity is suffocated and millions of people are left wondering how to survive. And really: how do you survive with neither resources nor means of production nor money? The nihilism of our economic system is evident. The whole world will be transformed into money – and then it will disappear. After all, money cannot be eaten. What no one seems to consider is the fact that it is impossible to re-transform commodities, money, capital and machinery into nature or concrete wealth. It seems that underlying all "economic development" is the assumption that "resources", the "sources of wealth",~38~ are renewable and everlasting – just like the "growth" they create.~39~ The notion that capitalism and democracy are one is proven a myth by neoliberalism and its "monetary totalitarianism".~40~ The primacy of politics over economy has been lost. Politicians of all parties have abandoned it. It is the corporations that dictate politics. Where corporate interests are concerned, there is no place for democratic convention or community control. Public space disappears. The res publica turns into a res privata, or – as we could say today – a res privata transnationale (in its original Latin meaning, privare means "to deprive"). Only those in power still have rights. They give themselves the licenses they need, from the "license to plunder" to the "license to kill".~41~ Those who get in their way or challenge their "rights" are vilified, criminalized and to an increasing degree defined as "terrorists" or, in the case of defiant governments, as "rogue states" – a label that usually implies threatened or actual military attack, as we can see in the cases of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Syria and Iran in the near future. U.S. President Bush had even spoken of the possibility of "preemptive" nuclear strikes should the U.S. feel endangered by weapons of mass destruction.~42~ The European Union did not object.~43~ Neoliberalism and war are two sides of the same coin.~44~ Free trade, piracy and war are still "an inseparable three" – today maybe more so than ever. War is not only "good for the economy" but is indeed its driving force and can be understood as the "continuation of economy with other means".~45~ War and economy have become almost indistinguishable.~46~ Wars about resources – especially oil and water – have already begun.~47~ The Gulf Wars are the most obvious examples. Militarism once again appears as the "executor of capital accumulation" – potentially everywhere and enduringly.~48~ Human rights and rights of sovereignty have been transferred from people, communities and governments to corporations.~49~ The notion of the people as a sovereign body has practically been abolished. We have witnessed a coup of sorts. The political systems of the West and the nation state as guarantees for and expression of the international division of labor in the modern world system are increasingly dissolving.~50~ Nation states are developing into "periphery states" according to the inferior role they play in the proto-despotic "New World Order".~51~ Democracy appears outdated. After all, it "hinders business".~52~ The "New World Order" implies a new division of labor that does no longer distinguish between North and South, East and West – today, everywhere is South. An according International Law is established which effectively functions from top to bottom ("top-down") and eliminates all local and regional communal rights. And not only that: many such rights are rendered invalid both retroactively and for the future.~53~ The logic of neoliberalism as a sort of totalitarian neo-mercantilism is that all resources, all markets, all money, all profits, all means of production, all "investment opportunities", all rights and all power belong to the corporations only. To paraphrase Richard Sennett: "Everything to the Corporations!"~54~ One might add: "Now!" The corporations are free to do whatever they please with what they get. Nobody is allowed to interfere. Ironically, we are expected to rely on them to find a way out of the crisis we are in. This puts the entire globe at risk since responsibility is something the corporations do not have or know. The times of social contracts are gone.~55~ In fact, pointing out the crisis alone has become a crime and all critique will soon be defined as "terror" and persecuted as such.~56~ IMF Economic Medicine Since the 1980s, it is mainly the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF that act as the enforcers of neoliberalism. These programs are levied against the countries of the South which can be extorted due to their debts. Meanwhile, numerous military interventions and wars help to take possession of the assets that still remain, secure resources, install neoliberalism as the global economic politics, crush resistance movements (which are cynically labeled as "IMF uprisings"), and facilitate the lucrative business of reconstruction.~57~ In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher introduced neoliberalism in Anglo-America. In 1989, the so-called "Washington Consensus" was formulated. It claimed to lead to global freedom, prosperity and economic growth through "deregulation, liberalization and privatization". This has become the credo and promise of all neoliberals. Today we know that the promise has come true for the corporations only – not for anybody else. In the Middle East, the Western support for Saddam Hussein in the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, and the Gulf War of the early 1990s, announced the permanent U.S. presence in the world’s most contested oil region. In continental Europe, neoliberalism began with the crisis in Yugoslavia caused by the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF. The country was heavily exploited, fell apart and finally beset by a civil war over its last remaining resources.~58~ Since the NATO war in 1999, the Balkans are fragmented, occupied and geopolitically under neoliberal control.~59~ The region is of main strategic interest for future oil and gas transport from the Caucasus to the West (for example the "Nabucco" gas pipeline that is supposed to start operating from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and the Balkans by 2011.~60~ The reconstruction of the Balkans is exclusively in the hands of Western corporations. All governments, whether left, right, liberal or green, accept this. There is no analysis of the connection between the politics of neoliberalism, its history, its background and its effects on Europe and other parts of the world. Likewise, there is no analysis of its connection to the new militarism.
Plan
The appropriation of outer space by private entities is unjust. Thus, the plan.
Plan text: Outer space ought to be recognized as a global commons as per the Goehring card. Goehring describes but does not advocate treating space in this way.
Goehring 6/3 - John S. Goehring ~B.A., University of California, Berkeley; J.D., Tulane Law School; LL.M., McGill University, Institute of Air and Space Law) is a space and international law attorney for the Department of Defense and a judge advocate in the United States Air Force Reserve~, "Why Isn’t Outer Space a Global Commons?" Journal of National Security Law and Policy. Vol. 11:573. (June 3, 2021).https://jnslp.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Why'Isnt'Outer'Space'a'Global'Commons'2.pdf AT B. Global Commons as a Constraining Concept In an economic context, as opposed to a military or geopolitical context, "global commons" is typically used to convey a constraining concept. The concept of a "commons" may be thought of as constraining because it is often associated with notions of shared ownership, public governance, or limitations on use. Whether these constraints are viewed positively or negatively is a subjective assessment. The constraining concept is more complicated than the enabling concept because it can reflect two distinct meanings. This is likely a function of its history. "The ‘commons,’ of course, has a long historical and intellectual lineage ranging from the enclosure movement in England, to Garret Hardin’s famous Tragedy of the Commons parable, to Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel-prize winning work on governing common pool resources," observe Professors Foster and Iaione.30 Applying rational-choice theory, Hardin postulated that individual actors "automatically tend to over-exploit and plunder common-pool resources that are freely available to everyone."31 The only possible solution to this dilemma, according to Hardin, was "the enclosure of resources through private property, or, failing that, public regulation."32 Ostrom’s work later "turned ~Hardin’s~ conventional wisdom upside down: complex socio-ecological systems (in which goods are extractable and beneficiaries are hard to exclude) can prove to be sustainable resource domains granted that its stakeholders adopt a polycentric and self-regulated mode of governance."33 As this brief summary suggests, one meaning of "commons" is simply to describe a category of goods.34 This usage was typical prior to Ostrom’s influence.35 In this meaning, a common is a resource to which access is shared, such as an open hunting ground. Some common resources may offer more than one type of benefit. For example, a hunting ground may offer open space for recreation, game to hunt, and trees for building. Some common resources may be subtractable, meaning that use of the resource subtracts from the ability of others to use the resource, while others remain plentiful. Describing a resource in this manner, as a common resource, does not necessarily imply any particular property regime or use limitations.36 A common hunting ground, for instance, may be publicly owned or privately owned. Ostrom helped popularize the term "common pool resource" to describe this general category of resources.37 As Dr. Tepper argues, "~i~t is crucial to differentiate between resources and the legal regime that governs them."38 This is because the term "global commons" – or simply "commons" – can also be used in an economic sense to refer to a form of collective ownership and governance rather than to the economic goods themselves.39 As Professors Cogolati and Woulters observe, "~u~nder Ostrom’s influence, the commons have become more closely connected with the collective self-governance and participatory mechanisms they imply, than with the strict category of (rivalrous and non-excludable) economic goods they used to refer to."40 This may account for the notion held by some that "the commons is less a description of the resource and its characteristics and more of a normative claim to the resource" (emphasis original).41 Used in this way, a commons is a category of property rights based on collective ownership.42 Put simply, "commons" is sometimes used to refer to common property, meaning a resource with more than one owner, and which therefore should be governed collectively. This notion of a commons is sometimes associated with the common heritage of mankind concept, particularly in the context of outer space. As expressed in Article 11(3) of the 1979 Moon Agreement, the common heritage of mankind concept creates a new type of territorial status in which the moon and celestial bodies "are not only in themselves not subject to national appropriation in a territorial sense, but the fruits and resources of which are also deemed to be the property of mankind at large," according to Professor Cheng.43 This principle, as characterized by Professor Christol, not only "protects the proposition what ~sic~ given areas and their resources are open to inclusive use and that there may not be exclusive use," but also "goes farther: it asserts that there must be a sharing of the benefits and of the values derived from the indicated commons."44 In other words, status as the common heritage of mankind does not permit full private property rights in space resources. It should be noted that the concept of the common heritage of mankind is not limited to the outer space domain. In 1970, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution declaring "~t~he sea-bed and ocean floor, and the subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (hereinafter referred to as the area), as well as the resources of the area, are the common heritage of mankind."45 Years later – after the completion of the Moon Agreement – this principle was codified in Article 136 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).46 Importantly, while the area is the common heritage of mankind according to the Convention, the high seas above the area remains free.47 Hence, some may refer to the high seas as a global commons (in the enabling sense), while others may refer to the deep sea bed as a global commons (in the constraining sense) – a clear example of why the term is fraught with misunderstanding. While the concept of common heritage of the seabed and of the Moon and other celestial bodies are linked, the Moon Agreement declares that the content of the common heritage of mankind concept as it applies to States Parties "finds its expression in the provisions of this Agreement" and nowhere else.48 In general, the concept "lacks a precise definition" but "basically wishes to convey the idea that management, exploitation and distribution of the natural resources of the area in question are matters to be decided upon by the international community and are not to be left to the initiative and discretion of individual States and their nationals."49 The United States has not signed the Moon Agreement and rejects the notion that outer space resources are the common heritage of mankind, a position clearly reiterated in Executive Order 13914.50 The last of the five international space treaties to have been negotiated in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), the Moon Agreement is regarded as a failed treaty with only 18 nations having signed on, none of which is China, Russia, or the United States, the three most prominent space-faring States.51 VISITED STATUS OF INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS RELATING TO ACTIVITIES IN OUTER SPACE, UNITED NATIONS OFFICE FOR OUTER SPACE AFFAIRS, https://perma.cc/8VA5-4UW8 (last July 11, 2020). The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, by contrast, has over 100 States Parties.52 Context is essential for discerning the distinction between the constraining concept and the enabling concept. By themselves, "global commons" or "commons" do not necessarily convey one concept or the other. Describing a resource as a "global commons" in an economic context implies a focus on an open access resource and the consumption of that resource; it suggests a resource allocation problem in need of a solution and inevitably invites questions about ownership. In contrast, referring to a global commons in a military or geopolitical context implies a focus on the use of an open access domain and, when used accurately, the lack of ownership is a settled question. Indeed, the distinction between a focus on a thing (res) itself and a focus on the right to use and explore a domain is among the reasons the term "res communis" is not interchangeable with "global commons" when used in a military or geopolitical sense.53
Solvency
Treating space as a commons solves orbital debris. States already agree to a limited regime of this type.
Silverstein and Panda ‘3/9 - Benjamin Silverstein ~research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MA, International Relations, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs BA, International Affairs, George Washington University~ and Ankit Panda ~Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AB, Princeton University~, "Space Is a Great Commons. It’s Time to Treat It as Such." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Web). March 9, 2021. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/09/space-is-great-commons.-it-s-time-to-treat-it-as-such-pub-84018 AT The failure to manage Earth orbits as a commons undermines safety and predictability, exposing space operators to growing risks such as collisions with other satellites and debris. The long-standing debris problem has been building for decades and demands an international solution.¶ Competing states need to coalesce behind a commons-based understanding of Earth orbits to set the table for a governance system to organize space traffic and address rampant debris. New leadership in the United States can spur progress on space governance by affirming that Earth orbits are a great commons. So far, President Joe Biden and his administration have focused on major space projects, but a relatively simple policy declaration that frames Earth orbits as a great commons can support efforts to negotiate space governance models for issues like debris mitigation and remediation. The Biden administration can set the stage to pursue broad space policy goals by establishing a consensus among states, particularly those with the most invested in Earth orbits, that space is a great commons.¶ THE PRESSING NEED FOR SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ The Earth orbits that provide the majority of benefits to states and commercial ventures represent only a tiny fraction of outer space as a whole. Competition for the limited volume of these Earth orbits is especially fierce since two satellites cannot be in the same place at the same time and not all orbits are equally useful for all missions. The number of objects residing in Earth orbits is now at an all-time high, with most new objects introduced into orbits at altitudes of between 400 and 700 kilometers above sea level. Millions of pieces of debris in Earth orbits pose a threat to continuing space operations. For instance, the final U.S. space shuttle missions faced 1-in-300 odds of losing a space vehicle or crew member to orbital debris or micrometeoroid impacts.¶ Collisions with fragments of orbital litter as small as a few millimeters across can ruin satellites and end missions. Current technologies cannot track all of these tiny pieces of debris, leaving space assets at the mercy of undetectable, untraceable, and unpredictable pieces of space junk. Some researchers have determined that the debris population in low Earth orbit is already self-sustaining, meaning that collisions between space objects will produce debris more rapidly than natural forces, like atmospheric drag, can remove it from orbit.¶ States—namely the United States, Russia, China, and India—have exacerbated this debris accumulation trend by testing kinetic anti-satellite capabilities or otherwise purposefully fragmenting their satellites in orbit. These states, along with the rest of the multilateral disarmament community, are currently at an impasse on establishing future space governance mechanisms that can address the debris issue. A portion of this impasse may be attributable to disparate views of the nature of outer space in the international context. Establishing a clear view among negotiating parties that Earth orbits should be treated as a great commons would establish a basis for future agreements that reduce debris-related risks.¶ Beyond debris-generating, kinetic anti-satellite weapons tests, revolutionary operating concepts challenge existing space traffic management practices. For instance, commercial ventures are planning networks of thousands of satellites to provide low-latency connectivity on Earth and deploying them by the dozens. States are following this trend. Some are considering transitioning away from using single (or few) exquisite assets in higher orbits and toward using many satellites in low Earth orbits. These new operational concepts could lead to an increase in collision risks.¶ Without new governance agreements, problems related to debris, heavy orbital traffic, and harmful interference will only intensify. Debris in higher orbits can persist for a century or more. The costs of adapting to increasingly polluted orbits would be immense, and the opportunity costs would be even higher. For instance, all else being equal, hardening satellites against collisions increases their mass and volume, in turn raising launch costs per satellite. These costs, rooted in a failure to govern space as a commons, will be borne by all space actors, including emerging states and commercial entities.¶ EXISTING FORMS OF SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ A well-designed governance system, founded on a widespread understanding of Earth orbits as a great commons, could temper these risks. Currently, space is not wholly unregulated, but existing regulations are limited both in scope and implementation. Many operators pledge to follow national regulations and international guidelines, but decentralized accountability mechanisms limit enforcement. These guidelines also do not cover the full range of potentially risky behaviors in space. For example, while some space operators can maneuver satellites to avoid collisions, there are no compulsory rules or standards on who has the right of way.¶ At the interstate level, seminal multilateral agreements provide some more narrow guidance on what is and is not acceptable in space. Most famously, the Outer Space Treaty affirms that outer space "shall be free for exploration and use by all states without discrimination of any kind" and that "there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies." Similar concepts of Earth orbits being a great commons arise in subsequent international texts. Agreements like the Liability Convention impose fault-based liability for debris-related collisions in space, but it is difficult to prove fault in this regime in part because satellite owners and operators have yet to codify a standard of care in space, and thus the regime does not clearly disincentivize debris creation in orbit. Other rules of behavior in Earth orbits have been more successful in reducing harmful interference between satellite operations, but even these efforts are limited in scope.¶ States have acceded to supranational regulations of the most limited (and thus most valuable) Earth orbits. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) coordinates, but does not authorize, satellite deployments and operations in geosynchronous orbits and manages radiofrequency spectrum assignments in other regions of space to reduce interference between satellites. These coordination activities are underpinned by the ITU’s constitution, which reminds states "that radio frequencies and any associate orbits . . . are limited natural resources," indicating a commons-based approach to governing the radiofrequency spectrum. However, the union’s processes are still adapting to new operational realities in low Earth orbit, and these rules were never designed to address issues like debris.
Space resources must be distributed democratically—this requires challenging private control of outer space.
Levine 15 Nick Levine, MPhil candidate in history of science at the University of Cambridge, 3-21-2015, "Democratize the Universe," Jacobin, https://jacobinmag.com/2015/03/space-industry-extraction-levine The privatization of the Milky Way has begun. Last summer, the bipartisan ASTEROIDS Act was introduced in Congress. The legislation’s aim is to grant US corporations property rights over any natural resources — like the platinum-group metals used in electronics — that they extract from asteroids. The bill took advantage of an ambiguity in the United Nations’ 1967 Outer Space Treaty. That agreement forbade nations and private organizations from claiming territory on celestial bodies, but was unclear about whether the exploitation of their natural resources would be allowed, and if so, on what terms. The legal framework governing the economic development of outer space will have enormous effects on the distribution of wealth and income in the Milky Way and beyond. We could fight for a galactic democracy, where the proceeds of the space economy are distributed widely. Or we could accept the trickle-down astronomics anticipated by the ASTEROIDS Act, which would allow for the concentration of vast amounts of economic and political power in the hands of a few corporations and the most technologically developed nations. Given the pressing problems of inequality and climate change on Earth, the US left has been understandably uninterested in or largely dismissive of any space pursuits. For this reason, it remains unprepared to organize around extraterrestrial economic justice. The Left’s rejection of space has effectively ceded the celestial commons to the business interests who would literally universalize laissez-faire. Organizing around extraterrestrial politics wasn’t always treated as an escapist distraction. In the 1970s, fighting for a celestial commons was a pillar of developing countries’ struggle to create a more equitable economic order. Starting in the 1960s, a coalition of underdeveloped nations, many recently decolonized, asserted their strength in numbers in the United Nations by forming a caucus known as the Group of 77. In the early 1970s, this bloc announced its intention to establish a "new international economic order," which found its expression in a series of UN treaties governing international regions, like sea beds and outer space, that they hoped would spread the economic benefits of the commons more equitably, with special attention to less developed nations. For these countries — as well as for the nervous US business interests that opposed them — their plan to "socialize the moon," as some put it at the time, was the first step toward a more egalitarian distribution of wealth and power in human society. It will be years before the industrialization of outer space is economically viable, if it ever is. But the legal framework that would shape that transition is being worked out now. The ASTEROIDS Act was submitted on behalf of those who would benefit most from a laissez-faire extraterrestrial system. If we leave the discussion about celestial property rights to the business interests that monopolize it now, any dream of economic democracy in outer space will go the way of jetpacks, flying cars, and the fifteen-hour workweek. As Below, So Above Left critics of space proposals make the same mistakes as the most techno-utopian starry-eyed industrialists. From the point of view of the latter, celestial development will provide ultimate salvation to the human race by making us a multi-planetary species; the former see outer space as an infinite void essentially antagonistic to human life, interest in which is only orchestrated for cynical political ends. Each side misconceives extraterrestrial pursuits as qualitatively different from economic activities on Earth. Venturing into space may be a greater technical challenge; it may cost more, be more dangerous, or be a mistaken use of resources. But to understand these prospects in existential terms rather than as a new episode in the familiar history of industrial development and resource extraction — with all the political-strategic dangers and organizing opportunities that come with them — is to be blinded by the space romanticism that is a peculiar vestige of Cold War geopolitics. Whether and how we should go to space are not profound philosophical questions, at least not primarily. What’s at stake is not just the "stature of man," as Hannah Arendt put it, but a political-economic struggle over the future of the celestial commons, which could result in a dramatic intensification of inequality — or a small step for humankind toward a more egalitarian state of affairs on our current planet. Undoubtedly, there are good reasons to be skeptical about going to space. Some have argued that it shifts attention away from solving the difficult problems of economic and environmental justice on Earth — think of Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken-word poem "Whitey on the Moon," which juxtaposes the deprivation of the American underclass with the vast resources diverted to space. Scott-Heron’s critique is powerful, but it’s important to remember that he was denouncing an unjust economic system. He wasn’t issuing a timeless condemnation of space pursuits as such. Whether the aims of providing for all and developing outer space are mutually exclusive depends on the political forces on the ground. We might also question whether mining asteroids would be detrimental to our current planet’s environment in the medium term. If we don’t find a renewable way to blast off into outer space, the exploitation of these resources could lead to an intensification of, not a move away from, the fossil-fuel economy. If the environmental impact of space mining turns out to be large, it would be analogous to fracking — a technological development that gives us access to new resources, but with devastating ecological side effects — and ought to be opposed on similar grounds. On the other hand, some speculate that mining the Moon’s Helium-3 reserves, for example, could provide an abundant source of clean energy. The terrestrial environmental impact of space activity remains an open question that must be explored before we stake our hopes on the economic development of outer space. Philosophers have suggested that we might have ethical duties to preserve the "natural" states of celestial bodies. Others fear that our activities might unknowingly wipe out alien microbial life. We should remain sensitive to the aesthetic and cultural value of outer space, as well as the potential for extinction and the exhaustion of resources misleadingly proclaimed to be limitless. But if the Left rejects space on these grounds we abandon its fate to the will of private interests. These concerns shouldn’t cause us to write off space altogether — rather, they should motivate us even more to fight for the careful, democratic use of celestial resources for the benefit of all. There is also reason to be cautiously optimistic about extending economic activity to outer space. For one, the resources there — whether platinum-group metals useful in electronics, or fuels that could be central to the semi-independent functioning of an outer space economy — have the potential to raise our standards of living. Imagine, a superabundance of asteroid metals that are scarce on Earth, like platinum, driving the sort of automation that could expand output and reduce the need to work. Of course, there’s nothing inevitable about the benefits of productivity gains being distributed widely, as we’ve seen in the United States over the past forty years. This is a problem not limited to space, and the myth of the "final frontier" must not distract us from the already existing problems of wealth and income distribution on Earth. While the industrialization of the solar system isn’t a panacea for all economic ills, it does offer a significant organizing opportunity, since it will force a confrontation over the future of the vast celestial commons. The democratic possibilities of such a struggle have been recognized before: one conservative American citizens’ group in the 1970s called a progressive UN space treaty a "vital component of Third World demands for massive redistribution of wealth so as ultimately to equate the economic positions of the two hemispheres." Many in the 1970s identified the egalitarian potential in the development of outer space, and the Left must not overlook it today. Back to the Future One of the Group of 77’s major goals was to apply some of the redistributive functions of the welfare state on a global scale. In 1974, that coalition issued a "Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order," which called for a fairer system of global trade and resource distribution, one that could alleviate historical inequality. One of the battlegrounds for the Group of 77 was the negotiation over extraterrestrial property rights. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, signed by over ninety countries in the heat of the first sprint to the moon, rejected the notion that celestial bodies fell under the legal principle of res nullius — meaning that outer space was empty territory that could be claimed for a nation through occupation. It forbade the "national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means" of outer space. But the treaty was not just restrictive. It also had a positive requirement for extraterrestrial conduct: "The exploration and use of outer space," it declared, "shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind." However, nobody knew what this would mean in practice: was it a call for egalitarian economics, or an empty proclamation of liberal benevolence? Complicating matters, it was unclear whether the extraction and sale of natural resources from outer space fell under the category of "appropriation," which had been forbidden. And what exactly was this benefit to all countries that our outer space pursuits were supposed to bring? How would its distribution be enforced? Which interpretation would win out was more a question of political power than of esoteric legal maneuvers. The Group of 77 took an activist approach to these issues, proposing amendments to the Outer Space Treaty regime that would spread the economic benefits of the celestial commons to less developed countries that did not have the resources to get to space, let alone mine it. Thus in 1970, the Argentine delegate to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space proposed to legally designate outer space and its resources "the common heritage of mankind." First applied in negotiations over maritime law a few years earlier, the "common heritage" concept was intended to give legal grounding to the peaceful international governance of the commons. As an alternative to the laissez-faire approach advocated by many private interests, the "common heritage" principle also provided a legal framework for the democratic distribution of revenues derived from the international commons. In 1973, the Indian delegation to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space tried to put this idea into celestial practice, proposing an amendment to the Outer Space Treaty that called for equitable sharing of space benefits, particularly with developing countries. The Brazilian delegate to the committee summarized the group’s position: "It does not seem justifiable . . . that space activities . . . should evolve in a climate of total laissez-faire, which would conceal under the cloak of rationality new ways for an abusive exercise of power by those who exert control over technology." Despite opposition from both the Soviet Union and the United States, the final draft of this new outer space agreement included a version of the "common heritage of mankind" doctrine. When the finalized treaty was brought to the US in 1979 for ratification, business groups balked. The vision of egalitarian galactic democracy suggested by the document was rightly seen as contrary to narrow American interests. The United Technologies Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of aircrafts and other heavy machinery (including the Black Hawk helicopter) took out a large advertisement in the Washington Post and a number of other newspapers, warning that the treaty would establish an "OPEC-like monopoly, require mandatory transfer of technology, and impose high international taxes on profits as a way of shifting wealth from the developed to the less developed countries." The president of the corporation, Alexander Haig, also testified against the treaty in Congress in 1979, warning that "the common heritage concept expressed in the treaty underlies Third World efforts directed at a fundamental redistribution of global wealth." Haig was hired as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state in 1981, and political opposition to the bill forced NASA’s chief counsel to abandon defense of the treaty. In the end, the Moon Treaty, as the 1979 document came to be known, failed to gain more than a few signatories, leaving open the question of how the benefits of outer space were to be shared. In 1988, a different coalition of developing countries added the question of space benefits to the UN outer space committee’s agenda. But they failed to gain traction, and by 1993 they had to concede, as two long-time delegates to the outer space committee put it, that "their attempt ~at~ a redistributive revolution in international space cooperation had failed." The conversation had shifted from the distribution of economic benefits to a narrower emphasis on international scientific coordination and development aid. This retreat culminated in a 1996 declaration that limited the interpretation of the "benefit" clause of the Outer Space Treaty to vague promises to help less developed countries improve their space technologies. The ultimate failure of the Moon Treaty was representative of broader developments in international politics, as the influence of the Group of 77 declined. The fact that the structural adjustment policies of the Washington Consensus won out over the Third World’s redistributive goals was the result of contingent factors — the oil shock’s exacerbation of debt crises, for instance — but it also indicated the limits of the power the Group of 77 had wielded in the first place. In October 2014, the UN outer space committee issued a press release summarizing its most recent session. Its headline: "Outer Space Benefits Must Not Be Allowed to Widen Global Gap between Economic, Social Inequality, Fourth Committee Told." Despite paying lip service to its past concerns, the outer space committee now emphasizes equal access, voluntary technology transfers, and modest development aid over the direct redistributive approach it took in the 1970s. This shift from struggling for equality of outcome to equality of opportunity, with no accountability mechanism in place to ensure even the latter, represents a striking regression. The egalitarian dreams of the "revolution of the colonized" in the UN, as it was called at the time, have been forgotten. The Empire Strikes Back Recent US plans for outer space development, shaped overwhelmingly by Silicon Valley’s intuitions and capital, stand in stark contrast to the futuristic democratic dreams of the Group of 77. The most prominent of these entrepreneurial visions has been Elon Musk’s plan to colonize Mars. For now, international law seems to unequivocally forbid territorial claims on Mars and other celestial bodies. The legal status of resource extraction, on the other hand, remains an open question. A vocal group of entrepreneurs is hoping to set a precedent for the private appropriation of natural resources from asteroids, without internationally redistributive obligations. Planetary Resources, an asteroid-mining company whose backers include Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and James Cameron, plans to launch satellites to prospect for valuable asteroids in the next two years. Another US firm, Deep Space Industries, will launch exploratory satellites as soon as next year. These entrepreneurs hope to extract the valuable platinum-group metals, essential for manufacturing electronics, that are rare on Earth. Sensationalist articles on space mining will tell you about an asteroid worth $20 trillion. Investors also believe that asteroids might provide water that could be broken down into oxygen and hydrogen in space, yielding air for astronauts and fuel for their ships. This could facilitate a dramatic acceleration in the economic development of outer space. The CEO of Deep Space Industries said he hopes asteroids near Earth will be "like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century — a key resource located near where it was needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is our strategy." Another entrepreneur called the industrialization of outer space the "biggest wealth-creation opportunity in modern history." Before this value can be generated, however, the legal wrinkles have to be ironed out. And so in the summer of 2014, the ASTEROIDS Act was introduced in the House of Representatives to "promote the right of United States commercial entities to explore and utilize resources from asteroids in outer space, in accordance with the existing international obligations of the United States, free from harmful interference, and to transfer or sell such resources." The legislation was intended to clarify US interpretations of international space law, explicitly granting American companies the right to extract asteroid resources and bring them to market. The conclusion of Congress’s last session means that the bill will have to be reintroduced for it to move forward, and it is uncertain exactly when and how this will happen. But its appearance marked another clear attempt to unilaterally push international norms toward the free extraction of outer space resources, with limited democratic responsibilities attached — and it will not be the last. Joanne Gabrynowicz, editor emerita of the Journal of Space Law, said that an adviser to Planetary Resources had drafted the bill. Deep Space Industries also sent a letter supporting it directly to the space subcommittee of the House of Representatives. Moreover, Congressman Bill Posey, a cosponsor of the act, represents Florida, a state that Gabrynowicz pointed out has recently been forced to try to attract commercial space business — a direct response to the economic hardship caused by the decommissioning NASA’s space shuttle program. Such extraterrestrial special interests will no doubt continue to exert legislative pressure. In addition to asteroids, companies are investing millions in mining the moon, despite legal uncertainties. One such company, Moon Express, has already received a $10 million data-sharing contract from NASA. One of that company’s founders, a former dot-com billionaire, told the Los Angeles Times: There is strong legal precedent and consensus of "finders, keepers" for resources that are liberated through private investment, and the same will be true on the moon. You don’t have to own land to have ownership of resources you unlock from it. Moon Express will use existing precedents of peaceful presence and exploration set by the US government forty years ago. This redeployment of the finders-keepers principle is anathema to the redistributive regime imagined by the Group of 77. Private companies like Planetary Resources and Moon Express, with support from the federal government, are betting not only on the viability of space industrialization, but also on their ability to push through a legal regime that will validate their property claims on their terms. But the universalization of laissez-faire is not inevitable. Final Frontier Thesis The history of the Moon Treaty serves as a reminder that outer space is not just a screen onto which we project techno-utopian fantasies or existential anxieties about the infinite void. It has been, and will continue to be, a site of concrete struggle over economic power. The politics of the present are undoubtedly different from those of the 1970s. The egalitarian project of the Group of 77 has given way to BRICS-style market liberalism. Global capital has gained power where international labor efforts have stagnated. Domestic inequalities have skyrocketed. The rapid proliferation of information technologies has temporarily masked the reality that the future, to paraphrase William Gibson, is not being very evenly distributed. Without international political organization to challenge galactic market fundamentalism, a twenty-first century space odyssey could mean the concentration of even more wealth and income in the hands of a few powerful corporations and the most technologically advanced countries. At the same time, and for the same reasons, the prospect of preserving the final frontier as a celestial commons presents an opportunity to fight for a more democratic political economy. Sharing the benefits of the celestial commons is key to expanding democracy to a galactic scale. One time-tested means of distributing the benefits of natural-resource extraction universally is the sovereign wealth fund, which Alaska uses to deliver oil revenue to its residents. As an international commons, outer space offers an opportunity to experiment with such redistributive mechanisms beyond the traditional confines of the nation-state. Organizing around an issue of such scale may seem utopian, but it’s also necessary. From regulating capital to mitigating climate change, the problems that confront us are inherently global in scope and require commensurate strategies. At the very least, the global left ought to demand the creation of an independent Galactic Wealth Fund to manage the proceeds of outer space resources on behalf of all human beings. At first, it would amount to little, divided up among all of us. But as the space economy grows relative to the terrestrial one, social dividends from the Galactic Wealth Fund could provide the basis for a truly universal basic income. This is just one component of a broader platform for galactic democracy that must be developed collectively. Extraterrestrial economic justice — not just shiny technological advances — will be central to any truly egalitarian politics in the twenty-first century. It’s time to start building a democratic futurism.
States can extend existing models to govern space, but recognition of space as a commons is key.
Silverstein and Panda ‘3/9 - Benjamin Silverstein ~research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MA, International Relations, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs BA, International Affairs, George Washington University~ and Ankit Panda ~Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AB, Princeton University~, "Space Is a Great Commons. It’s Time to Treat It as Such." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Web). March 9, 2021. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/09/space-is-great-commons.-it-s-time-to-treat-it-as-such-pub-84018 AT BUILDING ON PRIOR MODELS FOR MANAGING COMMONS¶ The histories of other great commons provide lessons on how to manage shared space resources meaningfully and effectively. Efforts to minimize damage to other great commons—like the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution and subsequent protocols—offer guidance on how to resolve compliance issues. Notably, the negotiations on the original convention on air pollution involved, among others, the United States and the Soviet Union. This suggests that states can pursue mutual benefits in areas considered great commons even under competitive conditions. More recent negotiations on the convention’s accompanying protocols show that these competing states can even agree on financing a monitoring regime to support progress.¶ Existing conventions and implementing agreements indicate that states can reach valuable commitments to manage the Earth’s great commons. These governance models protect state interests and preserve the commons themselves. These principles apply to space, but progress on establishing more encompassing space governance principles, enforcement mechanisms, and dispute resolution procedures hinges on states sharing the fundamental view that space is a great commons. Reaching such a consensus is an important first step.¶ New leadership in prominent spacefaring states can revitalize efforts to recognize space as a commons and can build on established legal standards to pursue commons-related principles for governing Earth orbits. Space actors do not have to resolve all their competing interests based on the debris problem. But negligence, mismanagement, or poorly designed rules may spell disaster for Earth orbits. As a more diverse range of actors with space-based interests emerges, no single actor will be able to unilaterally impose universal rules. States can, however, negotiate agreements to manage commons areas to better pursue national objectives. The only way to effectively govern state and commercial space activities is to settle on and abide by common norms or rules.¶ New conventions or regulatory mechanisms for governing Earth orbits will not appear overnight, but states can build toward these goals by clarifying their commitments to treat space as a commons and pursuing governance arrangements that reflect this commitment. New policies in the United States should reflect that Earth orbits are a great commons.
Property rights are not necessary to encourage private development. Global commons can solve
Saletta Sterling and Orrman-Rossiter 18 ~Sterling Saletta, Morgan; Orrman-Rossiter, Kevin (2018). Can space mining benefit all of humanity?: The resource fund and citizen's dividend model of Alaska, the ‘last frontier’. Space Policy, (), S0265964616300704–. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.02.002~ CT The Outer Space Treaty (OST) came into force in 1967 and, having been ratified by all the major space faring governments as well as some 100 other nations, the Outer Space Treaty serves as the basis for international space law, the current corpus juris spatialis. The treaty declares the exploration and use of outer space shall be for, "the benefit and in the interests of all countries ~27~" and that outer space, as mentioned previously, "shall be the province of all mankind ~27~". With the increased commercialization of space, and the entrance of new actors, both national and private, the OST has come under increased scrutiny, with calls to expand, modify, and even to abrogate it ~35,36~. Issues surrounding the mining of celestial bodies have received particular attention and debate ~37~. Of particular concern is the matter of exploitation licences and property rights ~38~. The OST expressly forbids the "national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by other means" ~27~ of outer space and celestial bodies. This is frequently interpreted to mean that the OST denies private property claims in outer space, some authors and individuals ~39–41~ have argued that appropriation by non-nationalentities is allowed. The Outer Space Treaty, and its terrestrial analogues, UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and the Antarctica Treaty System (ATS) are ‘global commons regimes', though the terminology governing these commons differs and juridical concepts such as "common heritage of humanity" found in UNCLOS (and the Moon Treaty of 1979) and the "common province of mankind" found in the Outer Space Treaty have been interpreted in various manners. Due in part to these varying wordings, interpretations and attendant uncertainties, the need for a more comprehensive framework governing the environmental, ethical, and commercial aspects of space exploration, exploitation and colonization has been highlighted by many authors ~30,33,34~. Some advocates for the commercial exploitation of space claim that the absence of property rights is a barrier to such ventures, and in particular to the mining of celestial bodies such as the Moon or near earth asteroids ~35~. Some have gone so far as to suggest an abrogation of the OST in favor of a treaty that allows something like fee-simple ownership and what might best be called a California gold rush approach to outer space resource exploitation ~36–38~. Advocates of this approach would give something like fee-simple ownership of outer space resources on a ‘first in time, first in right’ basis with no clear licensing regime for such activities ~39~. In recent US law, Title IV of H.R. 2262- the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, grants ownership of asteroid resources to entities obtaining them but attempts to walk a fine line between this approach and international treaty obligations. It does not grant ownership of asteroid themselves, and explicitly states that resource exploitation must be in accordance with federal laws and existing treaty obligations, i.e. the OST ~40~. How such eventual exploitation occurs, and under what precise national and international regulatory and licensing regimes, is thus still a matter for the future to decide. On the other hand, it has also been suggested that modifications and additions to the OST based on terrestrial models will provide sufficient guarantee of the right to make profits from the exploitation of outer space resources. Henry Hertzfeld and Frans von der Dunk argue the current regime does not pose a problem for exploitation rights and that terrestrial models would allow private ventures the right to reasonable returns on investment from resource exploitation in space ~41~. Furthermore, in addition to important, and possibly irreconcilable, differences between a California gold rush style approach and the OST ~42~, arguments suggesting fee-simple or similar ownership is necessary for profitable private outer space resource exploitation simply do not stand in the face of contrary evidence from numerous terrestrial examples. These include offshore oil drilling, mining, timber and grazing operations in the United States and internationally which are regularly and profitably undertaken without ownership ~43~. Thus P. M. Sterns and L. I. Tennen argue that the current international regime does provide an adequate framework for commercial development in space, that fee-simple ownership is unnecessary and: "those who advocate the renunciation and abandonment of the nonappropriation principle are either seeking to increase their own bottom line by disingenuous and deceptive constructs, or lack an appropriate appreciation and respect for international processes ~~44~, p. 2439~". Thus, claims that a lack of private property rights in outer space will be a deterrent to commercial resource exploitation ventures in space do not reflect an adequate reflection and analysis of the manner in which current terrestrial practices might be extended into outer space without abrogating the current treaty regime. Nor would a system based on fee simple ownership be likely to tangibly benefit more than a small proportion of the world's population. Instead, the eventual wealth from exploiting celestial bodies would be concentrated in the hands of a few, exacerbating rather than alleviating existing problems for humanity and global sustainable development. The Outer Space Treaty has provided an effective legal framework for the exploration of outer space for over 50 years. Based on the history of treaty regimes governing other international spaces, UNCLOS and the ATS, it seems likely that, in future, additional protocols and agreements will be layered onto the OST and that calls to abrogate and to negotiate a wholly new treaty system are unlikely to succeed. While low participation in the Moon Agreement, also known as the Moon Treaty of 1979, which has not been ratified by either the United States, Russia, or China, has raised questions of legitimacy, it has recently been argued that the Moon Treaty may receive renewed interest in the international community. René Lefeber argues that, far from stifling commercial ventures, the Moon Agreement "provides the best available option for mankind, states and industry to develop space mineral resources in a harmonious way ~~5~, p. 47~", and that, as resource exploitation in outer space now seems likely, the need to elaborate an international regime to prevent conflict over resources may bring other parties to ratify, accede to, or sign the treaty. Ultimately, some form of international governance of outer space as a global commons ~45~ building on the OST and the current corpus juris spatialis seems both more likely and more desirable than an abrogation of the OST and its replacement with an entirely new treaty regime. Thus, an international regime built upon this existing regime will need to be constructed which takes a balanced approach to space exploration, development and exploitation and which encourages entrepreneurial development but also moves beyond vague utopian platitudes to real and concrete benefits for all of humanity.
====Ambiguities in the OST that allow private appropriation have kicked off a race to develop space, setting the stage for a debris crisis and the domination of space by unaccountable billionaires. Current laws fail due to lax rules and forum shopping.==== Dovey 21 ~Ceridwen Dovey, "Space Exploration At What Price?," Readers Digest Asia Pacific, 5/1/21. https://www.pressreader.com/australia/readers-digest-asia-pacific/20210501/281487869174485~~ CT One environmental risk all stakeholders agree on is that posed by space debris. There’s
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questioned why there’d been no proper consultation with the scientific community before launch.
Advantage 1: Space Debris
Increasing space debris levels inevitably set off a chain of collisions.
away, meaning that there is still time to develop a solution.52
Collisions make orbit unusable, causing nuclear war, mass starvation, and economic destruction.
Les Johnson 13, Deputy Manager for NASA's Advanced Concepts Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Co-Investigator for the JAXA T-Rex Space Tether Experiment and PI of NASA's ProSEDS Experiment, Master's Degree in Physics from Vanderbilt University, Popular Science Writer, and NASA Technologist, Frequent Contributor to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Sodety and Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Space Society, the World Future Society, and MENSA, Sky Alert!: When Satellites Fail, p. 9-12 ~language modified~ Whatever the initial cause, the result may be the same. A satellite destroyed
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, our military advantage over potential adversaries would be dramatically reduced or eliminated.
Advantage 2: Corporate Colonialism
Tech-billionaires advance a vision of private space colonization as a source of infinite resources to cure society’s ills. This rationalizes unrestrained consumption and replicates the logic of imperialism.
Mccormick 21 ~Ted McCormick writes about the history of science, empire, and economic thought. He has a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and teaches at Concordia University in Montreal. "The billionaire space race reflects a colonial mindset that fails to imagine a different world". 8-15-2021. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-billionaire-space-race-reflects-a-colonial-mindset-that-fails-to-imagine-a-different-world-165235. Accessed 12-15-2021; marlborough JH~ It was a time of political uncertainty, cultural conflict and social change. Private
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in defiance of all limits. We are struggling with these consequences today.
If only wealthy elites can tap the vast resources of outer space, we lock in a permanent and unconscionable inequality. Private space colonization amounts to unchecked exploitation and authoritarian corporate control of future settlements. Spencer ‘17
, our rallying cry should be this: Keep the red planet red!
This private expansion into space results in corporate colonization of planets that undermines the interests of the rest of humanity. Spencer ’17
Spencer, Keith A. ~senior editor at Salon~"Against Mars-a-Lago: Why SpaceX's Mars Colonization Plan Should Terrify You." Salon, Salon.com, Oct. 8 2017, https://www.salon.com/2017/10/08/against-mars-a-lago-why-spacexs-mars-colonization-plan-should-terrify-you/. When CEO Elon Musk announced last month that his aerospace company SpaceX would be sending cargo missions to Mars by 2022 — the first step in his tourism-driven colonization plan — a small cheer went up among space and science enthusiasts. Writing in the New York Post, Stephen Carter called Musk’s vision "inspiring," a salve for politically contentious times. "Our species has turned its vision inward; our image of human possibility has grown cramped and pessimistic," Carter wrote: "We dream less of reaching the stars than of winning the next election; less of maturing as a species than of shunning those who are different; less of the blessings of an advanced technological tomorrow than of an apocalyptic future marked by a desperate struggle to survive. Maybe a focus on the possibility of reaching our nearest planetary neighbor will help change all that." The Post editorial reflected a growing media consensus that humankind’s ultimate destiny is the colonization of the solar system — yet on a private basis. American government leaders generally agree with this vision. Obama egged on the privatization of NASA by legislating a policy shift to private commercial spaceflight, awarding government contracts to private companies like SpaceX to shuttle supplies to the International Space Station. "Governments can develop new technology and do some of the exciting early exploration but in the long run it's the private sector that finds ways to make profit, finds ways to expand humanity," said Dr. S. Pete Worden, the director of the NASA Ames Research lab, in 2012. And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote of his ambitions to bring American-style capitalism to the stars: "In the years to come, American industry must be the first to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-Earth orbit, to expand the sphere of the economy beyond this blue marble," Pence wrote. One wonders if these luminaries know their history. There has be no instance in which a private corporation became a colonizing power that did not end badly for everyone besides the shareholders. The East India Company is perhaps the finest portent of Musk’s Martian ambitions. In 1765, the East India Company forced the Mughal emperor to sign a legal agreement that would essentially permit their company to become the de facto rulers of Bengal. The East India Company then collected taxes and used its private army, which was over 200,000 strong by the early 19th century, to repress those who got in the way of its profit margins. "It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath," writes William Dalrymple in the Guardian. "It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history." The East India Company came to colonize much of the Indian subcontinent. In the modern era, an era in which the right of corporations to do what they want, unencumbered, has become a sacrosanct right in the eyes of many politicians, the lessons of the East India Company seem to have been all but forgotten. As Dalrymple writes: Democracy as we know it was considered an advance over feudalism because of the power that it gave the commoners to share in collective governance. To privately colonize a nation, much less a planet, means ceding governance and control back to corporations whose interest is not ours, and indeed, is always at odds with workers and residents — particularly in a resource-limited environment like a spaceship or the red planet. Even if, as Musk suggests, a private foundation is put in charge of running the show on Mars, their interests will inherently be at odds with the workers and employees involved. After all, a private foundation is not a democracy; and as major philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation illustrate, often do the bidding of their rich donors, and take an important role in ripening industries and regions for exploitation by Western corporations. Yet Mars’ colonization is a bit different than Bengal, namely in that it is not merely underdeveloped; it is undeveloped. How do you start an entirely new economy on a virgin world with no industry? After all, Martian resource extraction and trade with Earth is not feasible; the cost of transporting material across the solar system is astronomical, and there are no obvious minerals on Mars that we don’t already have in abundance on Earth. The only basis for colonization of Mars that Musk can conceive of is one based on tourism: the rich pay an amount — Musk quotes the ticket price at $200,000 if he can get 1 million tourists to pay that — that entitles them to a round-trip ticket. And while they’re on Mars and traveling to it, they luxuriate: Musk has assured that the trip would be "fun." This is what makes Musk’s Mars vision so different than, say, the Apollo missions or the International Space Station. This isn’t really exploration for humanity’s sake — there’s not that much science assumed here, as there was in the Moon missions. Musk wants to build the ultimate luxury package, exclusively for the richest among us. Musk isn’t trying to build something akin to Matt Damon’s spartan research base in "The Martian." He wants to build Mars-a-Lago. And an economy based on tourism, particularly high-end tourism, needs employees — even if a high degree of automation is assumed. And as I’ve written about before, that means a lot of labor at the lowest cost possible. Imagine signing away years of your life to be a housekeeper in the Mars-a-Lago hotel, with your communications, water, food, energy usage, even oxygen tightly managed by your employer, and no government to file a grievance to if your employer cuts your wages, harasses you, cuts off your oxygen. Where would Mars-a-Lago's employees turn if their rights were impinged upon? Oh wait, this planet is run privately? You have no rights. Musk's vision for Mars colonization is inherently authoritarian. The potential for the existence of the employees of the Martian tourism industry to slip into something resembling indentured servitude, even slavery, cannot be underestimated. We have government regulations for a reason on Earth — to protect us from the fresh horror Musk hopes to export to Mars. If he's considered these questions, he doesn't seem to care; for Musk, the devil's in the technological and financial details. The social and political are pretty uninteresting to him. This is unsurprising; accounts from those who have worked closely with him hint that he, like many CEOs, may be a sociopath. Even as a space enthusiast, I cannot get excited about the private colonization of Mars. You shouldn’t be either. This is not a giant leap for mankind; this is the next great leap in plutocracy. The mere notion that global wealth is so unevenly distributed that a small but sufficient sum of rich people could afford this trip is unsettling, indicative of the era of astonishing economic inequality in which we suffer. Thomas Frank, writing in Harpers, once wrote of a popular t-shirt he sighted while picnicking in a small West Virginia coal town: "Mine it union or keep it in the ground." The idea, of course, is that the corporations interested in resource extraction do not care whatsoever about their workers’ health, safety, or well-being; the union had their interests at heart, and was able to negotiate for safety, job security, and so on. I’d like to see a similar t-shirt or bumper sticker emerge among scientists and space enthusiasts: "Explore Mars democratically, or keep it in the sky."
Neoliberalism destroys ethics, locks in poverty and exploitation, decimates the environment, and causes war.
Werlhof 15 – Claudia, Professor of Political Science/Women's Studies, University Innsbruck (Austria), 2015 ("Neoliberal Globalization: Is There an Alternative to Plundering the Earth?" Global Research, May 25th, Available Online at http://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberal-globalization-is-there-an-alternative-to-plundering-the-earth/24403) At the center of both old and new economic liberalism lies: Self-interest and individualism; segregation of ethical principles and economic affairs, in other words: a process of ‘de-bedding’ economy from society; economic rationality as a mere cost-benefit calculation and profit maximization; competition as the essential driving force for growth and progress; specialization and the replacement of a subsistence economy with profit-oriented foreign trade (‘comparative cost advantage’); and the proscription of public (state) interference with market forces.~3~ Where the new economic liberalism outdoes the old is in its global claim. Today’s economic liberalism functions as a model for each and everyone: all parts of the economy, all sectors of society, of life/nature itself. As a consequence, the once "de-bedded" economy now claims to "im-bed" everything, including political power. Furthermore, a new twisted "economic ethics" (and with it a certain idea of "human nature") emerges that mocks everything from so-called do-gooders to altruism to selfless help to care for others to a notion of responsibility.~4~ This goes as far as claiming that the common good depends entirely on the uncontrolled egoism of the individual and, especially, on the prosperity of transnational corporations. The allegedly necessary "freedom" of the economy – which, paradoxically, only means the freedom of corporations – hence consists of a freedom from responsibility and commitment to society. The maximization of profit itself must occur within the shortest possible time; this means, preferably, through speculation and "shareholder value". It must meet as few obstacles as possible. Today, global economic interests outweigh not only extra-economic concerns but also national economic considerations since corporations today see themselves beyond both community and nation.~5~ A "level playing field" is created that offers the global players the best possible conditions. This playing field knows of no legal, social, ecological, cultural or national "barriers".~6~ As a result, economic competition plays out on a market that is free of all non-market, extra-economic or protectionist influences – unless they serve the interests of the big players (the corporations), of course. The corporations’ interests – their maximal growth and progress – take on complete priority. This is rationalized by alleging that their well-being means the well-being of small enterprises and workshops as well. The difference between the new and the old economic liberalism can first be articulated in quantitative terms: after capitalism went through a series of ruptures and challenges – caused by the "competing economic system", the crisis of capitalism, post-war "Keynesianism" with its social and welfare state tendencies, internal mass consumer demand (so-called Fordism), and the objective of full employment in the North. The liberal economic goals of the past are now not only euphorically resurrected but they are also "globalized". The main reason is indeed that the competition between alternative economic systems is gone. However, to conclude that this confirms the victory of capitalism and the "golden West" over "dark socialism" is only one possible interpretation. Another – opposing – interpretation is to see the "modern world system" (which contains both capitalism and socialism) as having hit a general crisis which causes total and merciless competition over global resources while leveling the way for investment opportunities, i.e. the valorization of capital.~7~ The ongoing globalization of neoliberalism demonstrates which interpretation is right. Not least, because the differences between the old and the new economic liberalism can not only be articulated in quantitative terms but in qualitative ones too. What we are witnessing are completely new phenomena: instead of a democratic "complete competition" between many small enterprises enjoying the freedom of the market, only the big corporations win. In turn, they create new market oligopolies and monopolies of previously unknown dimensions. The market hence only remains free for them, while it is rendered unfree for all others who are condemned to an existence of dependency (as enforced producers, workers and consumers) or excluded from the market altogether (if they have neither anything to sell or buy). About fifty percent of the world’s population fall into this group today, and the percentage is rising.~8~ Anti-trust laws have lost all power since the transnational corporations set the norms. It is the corporations – not "the market" as an anonymous mechanism or "invisible hand" – that determine today’s rules of trade, for example prices and legal regulations. This happens outside any political control. Speculation with an average twenty percent profit margin edges out honest producers who become "unprofitable".~9~ Money becomes too precious for comparatively non-profitable, long-term projects, or projects that only – how audacious! – serve a good life. Money instead "travels upwards" and disappears. Financial capital determines more and more what the markets are and do.~10~ By delinking the dollar from the price of gold, money creation no longer bears a direct relationship to production".~11~ Moreover, these days most of us are – exactly like all governments – in debt. It is financial capital that has all the money – we have none.~12~ Small, medium, even some bigger enterprises are pushed out of the market, forced to fold or swallowed by transnational corporations because their performances are below average in comparison to speculation – rather: spookulation – wins. The public sector, which has historically been defined as a sector of not-for-profit economy and administration, is "slimmed" and its "profitable" parts ("gems") handed to corporations (privatized). As a consequence, social services that are necessary for our existence disappear. Small and medium private businesses – which, until recently, employed eighty percent of the workforce and provided normal working conditions – are affected by these developments as well. The alleged correlation between economic growth and secure employment is false. When economic growth is accompanied by the mergers of businesses, jobs are lost.~13~ If there are any new jobs, most are precarious, meaning that they are only available temporarily and badly paid. One job is usually not enough to make a living.~14~ This means that the working conditions in the North become akin to those in the South, and the working conditions of men akin to those of women – a trend diametrically opposed to what we have always been told. Corporations now leave for the South (or East) to use cheap – and particularly female – labor without union affiliation. This has already been happening since the 1970s in the "Export Processing Zones" (EPZs, "world market factories" or "maquiladoras"), where most of the world’s computer chips, sneakers, clothes and electronic goods are produced.~15~ The EPZs lie in areas where century-old colonial-capitalist and authoritarian-patriarchal conditions guarantee the availability of cheap labor.~16~ The recent shift of business opportunities from consumer goods to armaments is a particularly troubling development.~17~ It is not only commodity production that is "outsourced" and located in the EPZs, but service industries as well. This is a result of the so-called Third Industrial Revolution, meaning the development of new information and communication technologies. Many jobs have disappeared entirely due to computerization, also in administrative fields.~18~ The combination of the principles of "high tech" and "low wage"/"no wage" (always denied by "progress" enthusiasts) guarantees a "comparative cost advantage" in foreign trade. This will eventually lead to "Chinese wages" in the West. A potential loss of Western consumers is not seen as a threat. A corporate economy does not care whether consumers are European, Chinese or Indian. The means of production become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially since finance capital – rendered precarious itself – controls asset values ever more aggressively. New forms of private property are created, not least through the "clearance" of public property and the transformation of formerly public and small-scale private services and industries to a corporate business sector. This concerns primarily fields that have long been (at least partly) excluded from the logic of profit – e.g. education, health, energy or water supply/disposal. New forms of so-called enclosures emerge from today’s total commercialization of formerly small-scale private or public industries and services, of the "commons", and of natural resources like oceans, rain forests, regions of genetic diversity or geopolitical interest (e.g. potential pipeline routes), etc.~19~ As far as the new virtual spaces and communication networks go, we are witnessing frantic efforts to bring these under private control as well.~20~ All these new forms of private property are essentially created by (more or less) predatory forms of appropriation. In this sense, they are a continuation of the history of so-called original accumulation which has expanded globally, in accordance with to the motto: "Growth through expropriation!"~21~ Most people have less and less access to the means of production, and so the dependence on scarce and underpaid work increases. The destruction of the welfare state also destroys the notion that individuals can rely on the community to provide for them in times of need. Our existence relies exclusively on private, i.e. expensive, services that are often of much worse quality and much less reliable than public services. (It is a myth that the private always outdoes the public.) What we are experiencing is undersupply formerly only known by the colonial South. The old claim that the South will eventually develop into the North is proven wrong. It is the North that increasingly develops into the South. We are witnessing the latest form of "development", namely, a world system of underdevelopment.~22~ Development and underdevelopment go hand in hand.~23~ This might even dawn on "development aid" workers soon. It is usually women who are called upon to counterbalance underdevelopment through increased work ("service provisions") in the household. As a result, the workload and underpay of women takes on horrendous dimensions: they do unpaid work inside their homes and poorly paid "housewifized" work outside.~24~ Yet, commercialization does not stop in front of the home’s doors either. Even housework becomes commercially co-opted ("new maid question"), with hardly any financial benefits for the women who do the work.~25~ Not least because of this, women are increasingly coerced into prostitution, one of today’s biggest global industries.~26~ This illustrates two things: a) how little the "emancipation" of women actually leads to "equal terms" with men; and b) that "capitalist development" does not imply increased "freedom" in wage labor relations, as the Left has claimed for a long time.~27~ If the latter were the case, then neoliberalism would mean the voluntary end of capitalism once it reaches its furthest extension. This, however, does not appear likely. Today, hundreds of millions of quasi-slaves, more than ever before, exist in the "world system."~28~ The authoritarian model of the "Export Processing Zones" is conquering the East and threatening the North. The redistribution of wealth runs ever more – and with ever accelerated speed – from the bottom to the top. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. The middle classes disappear. This is the situation we are facing. It becomes obvious that neoliberalism marks not the end of colonialism but, to the contrary, the colonization of the North. This new "colonization of the world"~29~ points back to the beginnings of the "modern world system" in the "long 16th century", when the conquering of the Americas, their exploitation and colonial transformation allowed for the rise and "development" of Europe.~30~ The so-called "children’s diseases" of modernity keep on haunting it, even in old age. They are, in fact, the main feature of modernity’s latest stage. They are expanding instead of disappearing. Where there is no South, there is no North; where there is no periphery, there is no center; where there is no colony, there is no – in any case no "Western" – civilization.~31~ Austria is part of the world system too. It is increasingly becoming a corporate colony (particularly of German corporations). This, however, does not keep it from being an active colonizer itself, especially in the East.~32~ Social, cultural, traditional and ecological considerations are abandoned and give way to a mentality of plundering. All global resources that we still have – natural resources, forests, water, genetic pools – have turned into objects of utilization. Rapid ecological destruction through depletion is the consequence. If one makes more profit by cutting down trees than by planting them, then there is no reason not to cut them.~33~ Neither the public nor the state interferes, despite global warming and the obvious fact that the clearing of the few remaining rain forests will irreversibly destroy the earth’s climate – not to mention the many other negative effects of such actions.~34~ Climate, animal, plants, human and general ecological rights are worth nothing compared to the interests of the corporations – no matter that the rain forest is not a renewable resource and that the entire earth’s ecosystem depends on it. If greed, and the rationalism with which it is economically enforced, really was an inherent anthropological trait, we would have never even reached this day. The commander of the Space Shuttle that circled the earth in 2005 remarked that "the center of Africa was burning". She meant the Congo, in which the last great rain forest of the continent is located. Without it there will be no more rain clouds above the sources of the Nile. However, it needs to disappear in order for corporations to gain free access to the Congo’s natural resources that are the reason for the wars that plague the region today. After all, one needs diamonds and coltan for mobile phones. Today, everything on earth is turned into commodities, i.e. everything becomes an object of "trade" and commercialization (which truly means liquidation, the transformation of all into liquid money). In its neoliberal stage it is not enough for capitalism to globally pursue less cost-intensive and preferably "wageless" commodity production. The objective is to transform everyone and everything into commodities, including life itself.~35~ We are racing blindly towards the violent and absolute conclusion of this "mode of production", namely total capitalization/liquidation by "monetarization".~36~ We are not only witnessing perpetual praise of the market – we are witnessing what can be described as "market fundamentalism". People believe in the market as if it was a god. There seems to be a sense that nothing could ever happen without it. Total global maximized accumulation of money/capital as abstract wealth becomes the sole purpose of economic activity. A "free" world market for everything has to be established – a world market that functions according to the interests of the corporations and capitalist money. The installment of such a market proceeds with dazzling speed. It creates new profit possibilities where they have not existed before, e.g. in Iraq, Eastern Europe or China. One thing remains generally overlooked: the abstract wealth created for accumulation implies the destruction of nature as concrete wealth. The result is a "hole in the ground" and next to it a garbage dump with used commodities, outdated machinery and money without value.~37~ However, once all concrete wealth (which today consists mainly of the last natural resources) will be gone, abstract wealth will disappear as well. It will, in Marx’s words, "evaporate". The fact that abstract wealth is not real wealth will become obvious, and so will the answer to the question of which wealth modern economic activity has really created. In the end it is nothing but monetary wealth (and even this mainly exists virtually or on accounts) that constitutes a monoculture controlled by a tiny minority. Diversity is suffocated and millions of people are left wondering how to survive. And really: how do you survive with neither resources nor means of production nor money? The nihilism of our economic system is evident. The whole world will be transformed into money – and then it will disappear. After all, money cannot be eaten. What no one seems to consider is the fact that it is impossible to re-transform commodities, money, capital and machinery into nature or concrete wealth. It seems that underlying all "economic development" is the assumption that "resources", the "sources of wealth",~38~ are renewable and everlasting – just like the "growth" they create.~39~ The notion that capitalism and democracy are one is proven a myth by neoliberalism and its "monetary totalitarianism".~40~ The primacy of politics over economy has been lost. Politicians of all parties have abandoned it. It is the corporations that dictate politics. Where corporate interests are concerned, there is no place for democratic convention or community control. Public space disappears. The res publica turns into a res privata, or – as we could say today – a res privata transnationale (in its original Latin meaning, privare means "to deprive"). Only those in power still have rights. They give themselves the licenses they need, from the "license to plunder" to the "license to kill".~41~ Those who get in their way or challenge their "rights" are vilified, criminalized and to an increasing degree defined as "terrorists" or, in the case of defiant governments, as "rogue states" – a label that usually implies threatened or actual military attack, as we can see in the cases of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Syria and Iran in the near future. U.S. President Bush had even spoken of the possibility of "preemptive" nuclear strikes should the U.S. feel endangered by weapons of mass destruction.~42~ The European Union did not object.~43~ Neoliberalism and war are two sides of the same coin.~44~ Free trade, piracy and war are still "an inseparable three" – today maybe more so than ever. War is not only "good for the economy" but is indeed its driving force and can be understood as the "continuation of economy with other means".~45~ War and economy have become almost indistinguishable.~46~ Wars about resources – especially oil and water – have already begun.~47~ The Gulf Wars are the most obvious examples. Militarism once again appears as the "executor of capital accumulation" – potentially everywhere and enduringly.~48~ Human rights and rights of sovereignty have been transferred from people, communities and governments to corporations.~49~ The notion of the people as a sovereign body has practically been abolished. We have witnessed a coup of sorts. The political systems of the West and the nation state as guarantees for and expression of the international division of labor in the modern world system are increasingly dissolving.~50~ Nation states are developing into "periphery states" according to the inferior role they play in the proto-despotic "New World Order".~51~ Democracy appears outdated. After all, it "hinders business".~52~ The "New World Order" implies a new division of labor that does no longer distinguish between North and South, East and West – today, everywhere is South. An according International Law is established which effectively functions from top to bottom ("top-down") and eliminates all local and regional communal rights. And not only that: many such rights are rendered invalid both retroactively and for the future.~53~ The logic of neoliberalism as a sort of totalitarian neo-mercantilism is that all resources, all markets, all money, all profits, all means of production, all "investment opportunities", all rights and all power belong to the corporations only. To paraphrase Richard Sennett: "Everything to the Corporations!"~54~ One might add: "Now!" The corporations are free to do whatever they please with what they get. Nobody is allowed to interfere. Ironically, we are expected to rely on them to find a way out of the crisis we are in. This puts the entire globe at risk since responsibility is something the corporations do not have or know. The times of social contracts are gone.~55~ In fact, pointing out the crisis alone has become a crime and all critique will soon be defined as "terror" and persecuted as such.~56~ IMF Economic Medicine Since the 1980s, it is mainly the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF that act as the enforcers of neoliberalism. These programs are levied against the countries of the South which can be extorted due to their debts. Meanwhile, numerous military interventions and wars help to take possession of the assets that still remain, secure resources, install neoliberalism as the global economic politics, crush resistance movements (which are cynically labeled as "IMF uprisings"), and facilitate the lucrative business of reconstruction.~57~ In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher introduced neoliberalism in Anglo-America. In 1989, the so-called "Washington Consensus" was formulated. It claimed to lead to global freedom, prosperity and economic growth through "deregulation, liberalization and privatization". This has become the credo and promise of all neoliberals. Today we know that the promise has come true for the corporations only – not for anybody else. In the Middle East, the Western support for Saddam Hussein in the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, and the Gulf War of the early 1990s, announced the permanent U.S. presence in the world’s most contested oil region. In continental Europe, neoliberalism began with the crisis in Yugoslavia caused by the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF. The country was heavily exploited, fell apart and finally beset by a civil war over its last remaining resources.~58~ Since the NATO war in 1999, the Balkans are fragmented, occupied and geopolitically under neoliberal control.~59~ The region is of main strategic interest for future oil and gas transport from the Caucasus to the West (for example the "Nabucco" gas pipeline that is supposed to start operating from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and the Balkans by 2011.~60~ The reconstruction of the Balkans is exclusively in the hands of Western corporations. All governments, whether left, right, liberal or green, accept this. There is no analysis of the connection between the politics of neoliberalism, its history, its background and its effects on Europe and other parts of the world. Likewise, there is no analysis of its connection to the new militarism.
Plan/Solvency
Since, in a just world, outer space would be treated as a global commons, and a global commons model precludes appropriation by private entries, then the appropriation of outer space by private entries is unjust.
Thus, the plan: States ought to adopt a binding international agreement that bans the appropriation of outer space by private entities by establishing outer space as a global commons subject to regulatory delimiting and global liability.
The aff:
solves debris and space colonialism by ensuring the sustainable and equitable use of outer space resources.
prevents circumvention by aligning the interests of state parties is normal means since it models numerous successful agreements governing all other global commons. Vollmer 20 ~Sarah Louise Vollmer (St. Mary's University School of Law), "The Right Stuff in Geospace: Using Mutual Coercion to Avoid an Inevitable Prison for Humanity," 51 ST. MARY'S L.J. 777 (2020). https://commons.stmarytx.edu/thestmaryslawjournal/vol51/iss3/6?utm'source=commons.stmarytx.edu2Fthestmaryslawjournal2Fvol512Fiss32F6andutm'medium=PDFandutm'campaign=PDFCoverPages ~CT IV. NECESSITY FOR REGULATION TO PRESERVE THE HERITAGE OF MANKIND—A PROPOSAL Conceptually, all persons hold an implied property right in the space commons.111 As such, spacefaring entities and developing nations possess an equitable right to access and use orbital resources.112 But the sui generis nature of geospace presents a paradox requiring a unique regime for the sustainable usage of its resources.113 The international community cannot realize the advantages of the common heritage principle under a property regime because any conceivable assignment would violate the non-appropriation clause or unjustly enrich a particular interest.114 This means that only regulatory solutions can protect the interests inherent in a commons protected for the common heritage of mankind. A. The Motivations for International Compliance The crux of a workable treaty lies in the consent of the parties to the agreement.115 Thereafter, signatories internalize the agreement’s object and purpose into their domestic law, or in the case of international organizations, into an institutional framework.116 To implement a binding international instrument, we must therefore ask the question: Why do nations follow international law,117 and how can we use those behavioral realities to construct a workable framework to ensure geospace survives?118 At the dawn of civilized society, depending on a particular jurisdiction’s values, the laws of nature and morality compelled obedience and social order.119 When nation-states concluded international agreements, it represented the coalescence of the various values-based systems, the overlap of which formed a universal understanding of the law of mankind.120 "~The~ fundamental conceptual boundary between municipal and international law . . . view~s~ international law largely in terms of contractual relations, therefore assigning to the ‘sovereign’ a central place in the construction of the two orders."121 In other words, transnational cooperation operated through balancing the competing autonomy and values of the parties involved. Despite centuries of debate, values systems remain the principal motivating factor of compliance with international law.122 Effective regulatory regimes must, therefore, strike at the heart of what nation-states value the most, which is often related to national security.123 When entering an international agreement, whether or not a nation-state will ratify it informs us of the value a nation-state places on the instrument’s subject matter. That value equates to the utility a nation-state places on certain allowances or prohibitions.124 Incorporating these motivating factors with Hardin’s regulatory solution, any freedoms infringed upon must manifest a higher utility than currently realized. If COPUOS proposes a protocol for sustainable uses of space, the provisions must either have a negligible effect on the global community’s perceived utility of space access or substantially increase that utility. Assuming the propositioned regulatory scheme aligns with the values system of each nation-state, the probability of internalizing such regulations through domestic codification is high. To ascertain the interests of nation-states, we must look to the factors motivating current space utilization. Routine access to space undeniably aids our technological advancement. The ISS’s antigravity environment provides unique conditions to study medicine.125 Satellites provide real-time tracking of environmental conditions and transmit crucial information for disaster recovery planning.126 Space telescopes track objects with the potential to cause the extinction of life of Earth.127 Free from the veil of our hazy atmosphere, satellites can produce better imagery and ascertain the composition of potential resource deposits on celestial bodies.128 And simply receiving satellite imagery of our planet forces us to confront the realities of our fragile existence. These benefits signify the tangible realization of the OST’s object and purpose, which flow to all members of the global community.129 If we do not begin active decontamination and mitigation of space debris, the utility of geospace will cease to exist. Imagining our existence without these advances is a potent method to stress the criticality of unabated pollution in geospace. B. Existing Proposals Legal scholars have formulated several frameworks to mitigate space debris. Some recommend implementing a market-share liability regime, which assigns liability according to the volume of each nation-states’ exploits.130 Opponents of this construction rightfully highlight the inequities inherent in such a scheme. Considering the United States, Russia, and China make up the bulk of spacefaring activity, market-share liability would unduly burden these nations, and coerce a categorical exit from the space industry or a repeat of the Moon Treaty.131 Another scholar advocates for an environmental law approach, asserting that the space commons would benefit from a protocol closely mirroring the Madrid Protocol.132 While prospective applications of such a model could prevent additional accumulations, it would not feasibly abate the current collection of debris.133 The strengths of Mary Button’s mitigation proposal lie in the binding nature of the Madrid Protocol and compulsory environmental impact requirements. And though it advocates for a more collaborative conference mechanism, rather than the strict unanimous consent required of UNCOPUOS’s resolutions, it still shies away from compulsory requirements for active debris removal. Along with the Antarctic Treaty (ATS), the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) also served as a model for the Corpus Juris Spatialis. But oddly, the law of salvage was omitted from the treaties. Unlike abandoned objects at sea, once a nation-state places an object into space, ownership exists in perpetuity. Sandra Drago addressed removing the OST’s property-in-perpetuity mechanism134 so as to permit the active salvage of inoperable satellites.135 Drago’s proposal is vital to any mitigation framework. But while this removes a substantial bar currently restricting debris removal, it does not address free-riding, and spacefaring enterprises are free to choose more lucrative space activities other than salvage operations.136 C. A Coercive Proposal Mutual coercion lies at the core of Hardin’s solution.137 To summarize, law-abiding citizens make concessions to regulatory social constructs in the interest of conserving some utility otherwise lost.138 The coercive element lies in relinquishing one’s ability to exploit some freedom, the detriment of which cannot be realized at that moment in time.139 Conceding to a regime that tempers free exploitation of the commons allows everyone to benefit from the positive externalities of individual usage. Equated to space, nation-states currently concede to non-appropriation in the interest of maintaining equitable access. But because of the sui generis nature of geospace, even non-participants receive a benefit from the use of the commons. In effect, beneficiaries are free-riding from the capital investment of spacefaring nations and entities. This informs the structure of the ensuing two-part framework: geospace delimitation and global liability
Geospace Delimitation The history of regulatory delimitation illustrates its effectiveness at balancing the rights of individuals, sovereigns, and mankind. Each instance explained in Part II infra, arose out of public necessity to ensure and protect the maximum utility of the global commons, without the deleteriousness of inhabitability, sovereign interference, or over-exploitation.140 The regimes governing Antarctica, the High Seas, the Atmosphere, and the radio-frequency spectrum evidence that mutually coercive delimitation can honor the common heritage of mankind, without encroaching on the peaceful enjoyment and benefits attributable to these areas. a. Antarctica In the 1950s, there was concern that Antarctica would succumb to Cold War hysteria, becoming a target for international discord and nuclear arms testing.141 In a move to reestablish global scientific exchange, the international scientific community hosted the International Geophysical Year project, and after identifying the potential of Antarctica, sought to protect it from any ruinous power posturing.142 This necessity for regulating permissible activity resulted in the formation of the ATS.143 Subsequent technological advancement revealed mineral deposits, triggering commercial interest in exploiting its natural resources. The threat catalyzed the promulgation of the Madrid Protocol.144 Again, these delimitations did not sever humanity’s utility in Antarctica. Rather, mankind conceded to the prohibition of deleterious usage in the interest of preserving its scientific utility.145 b. The High Seas Similar to Antarctica, the High Seas faced threats in the 1960s when nation-states began unilaterally and arbitrarily, extending resource recovery activities further into the depths of international waters.146 In the interest of equity, particularly the interests of landlocked nations, UNCLOS delimited sovereign access to the seas, allowing usage only within the established exclusive economic zones (EEZs).147 An annex to UNCLOS provided a procedural framework in which resource recovery enterprises could operate in international common areas beyond the EEZs, precluding the unilateral capture of global resources by one nation.148 Once more, a mutually coercive framework removed certain freedoms in the interest of mankind without unjustly limiting equitable access to resources. c. The Atmosphere Divergent from the problems of the ice and sea, atmospheric regulation resolved an issue more analogous to geospace debris proliferation. Atmospheric utility is quite simple: breathable air and protection from deadly cosmic radiation. When satellite imagery revealed the sizable hole in the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention placed an outright ban on ozone-depleting chemicals in everyday consumables.149 This prohibition directly addressed the source of the negative externality, forcing humanity to internalize the externality through alternate investment in refrigerants. Recent evidence of the reduction of ozone loss validates the mutually coercive delimitation within the Montreal Protocol.150 d. Regulating the Telecommunication Spectrum The business model and financial strategy of telecommunications entities influence satellite deployment planning. Typically, orbital placement aims to "maximize ~a~ potential user base," and if that base happens to encompass, for instance, the continental United States, market competition drastically narrows the availability of slots for satellite positioning.151 Realizing that satellite acquisition becomes moot without conscientious "use of telemetry and control . . . required for spaceflight,"152 the Space Radiocommunication Conference convened to revise the Radio Regulations in 1963,153 granting the ITU authority to allocate radio frequencies among spacefaring entities.154 Originally, the ITU: ~A~llocated orbits and frequencies solely through a first-in-time system. This led to concern that developed countries would secure all of the available slots before developing countries had the technological capacity to use them. Although some orbits and frequencies are still allocated on a first-in-time basis, each state is now guaranteed a certain number of future orbits and frequencies, regardless of its current technological capacity.155 The FCC regulates the segment of the electromagnetic spectrum allocated to the United States.156 Arguably, the ITU and agencies like the FCC engage in de facto appropriation of the more highly sought-after orbits.157 Yet to an extent, the ITU’s delimiting of the radio-frequency spectrum remedied the negative externalities of non-appropriation in geospace, such as the overcrowding of active satellites and the resultant interference. Where the ITU’s scheme does not remedy the byproduct of geospace resource use, it succeeds in ensuring communication capabilities remain free from inequitable use.158 e. The OST’s Ineffective Delimitations The recurrent theme among the aforementioned regulatory schemes is the preservation of utility within the commons concerned.159 The frameworks each provide a means to enjoy shared resources while removing the potential for destruction. The OST’s nonproliferation provisions properly regulate the usage of the space commons to further the enjoyment of space’s true utility: scientific discovery and telecommunications. Likewise, the Liability Convention reinforces the necessity to maintain heightened situational awareness to guarantee the mutual, uninterrupted enjoyment of activity in space.160 But nation-states exploit the loop-holes within these documents to avoid internalizing some of their externalities. Specifically, the Liability Convention only assigns liability for damage caused to space objects when fault can actually be determined.161 Though it would be simple to assign fault to a collision caused by an intact and inoperative satellite, it is virtually impossible to identify the owner of smaller pieces of debris. Further, while the ITU reserves slots for nations not represented in space,162 it does nothing to stop those capable of reaching geospace from littering the commons and destroying the utility of reserved slots.163 Holistically, none of the delimitations in the Corpus Juris Spatialis negate the cause of the growing belt of debris in geospace. As a sui generis resource, the mere occupation of LEO or GSO equates to the reduction of the overall utility of geospace. When an entity launches a rocket into space, the accompanying payload causes either (1) temporary reduction of the aggregate utility of geospace or (2) permanent reduction of the aggregate utility of geospace.164 The first delimitation prong will recommend bifurcating the applicability of the Corpus Juris Spatialis, with separate regimes for outer space and geospace. While the commercialization of outer space is not overly injurious to the international commons or interests of developing nations, the overcrowding of affluent spacefaring entities vying for orbital acquisition puts immense pressure on the finite resources within geospace. Therefore, demarcating the upper limit of geospace will allow entities to continue exploring the universe without imposing the restrictions placed on those seeking geospace positioning.165 This modification will allow continued use of both regions, but coerce more sustainable usage of geospace with the assistance of the secondary prong below. 2. Global Liability Operating under the theory that humanity holds an implied property right in the global commons but limited under the non-appropriation clause to protect those interests through traditional property mechanisms, the logical alternative is to impose liability on actions violative of the global interest.166 Further, assuming humanity collectively benefits from utilization of this commons, then humanity likewise must internalize the cost of the negative externalities imposed.167 This means that spacefarers, as members of the global collective, hold both the right and obligation to protect that right for others.168 Therefore, anyone utilizing or benefitting from the utilization of the geospace commons has an equitable duty to ensure its sustainability. Under traditional tort theories, when one has a duty, breach of that duty causally linked to a measurable injury is actionable. In terms of the duty to humanity when utilizing geospace, the culmination of Kessler Syndrome represents the measurable injury. Kessler informed the scientific community in 1970 of the probable cataclysmic chain-reaction and destructive conclusion of unabated geospace debris pollution.169 This theory, reiterated consistently since its dissemination, materialized in 2009.170 Fundamentally, every spacefaring entity and approving launching state knows of this monumental threat to the utility of geospace. Yet to date, mitigation guidelines remain non-binding, and four-figure satellite constellations continue to receive approval.171 To incorporate a time-honored risk calculation method, the Hand Formula is instructive and evidences a trend toward unapologetic endangerment to the utility of geospace in isolation of the associated tort regime. Let us assume the burden to mitigate space debris is $18.5 million172 but the probable magnitude of not mitigating the accumulation of space debris equates to reverting our technological capabilities back to the 1800s. Considering the accumulation of debris from the accidental or intentional breakup of geospace satellites, the probability of Kessler Syndrome fully concluding in the absence of a comprehensive mitigation protocol is one hundred percent.173 While difficult to quantify, the value of our scientific progress attributable to the advent of space travel far outstrips the burden to mitigate space debris. Should Kessler Syndrome become our reality, the measurable injury is the cost of reestablishing global communications without the usage of satellite relays. To add insult to injury, the invaluable utility of geospace will cease to exist. A viable alternative would institute a regime of shared global liability which makes consideration of capital investors as well as nonparticipating beneficiaries in the interest of equity. That is, should the inevitable prison for humanity become a reality, the entire global community will be liable to pay an equitable share of the overall cost of recovery efforts.174 The Liability Convention should undergo a similar trifurcation, adding this new scheme to the current strict and absolute liability mechanisms.175 As such, shared global liability will consider the responsibility of nation-states and private entities in isolation.176 This will coerce cooperation among all agencies, nations, and private entities because the equitable share of responsibility will drive collective resolution. V. CONCLUSION In light of the emerging global sentiments regarding environmental conservation and sustainability, instituting a regime that clearly defines a legal consequence in the event of environmental ruin boasts greater coercive force than non-binding resolutions. 9 This international agreement aligns with the universal value that the international community places on the utility of geospace.177 In essence, it protects geospace by forcing the signatory to face the reality of their negative externalities. It is unlikely that a nation-state exists that does not value space exploration and the benefits attributable. In April of 2019, in the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), COPUOS adopted an agenda that focused on the long-term sustainability of the space commons, space traffic management, equitable uses of GSO, and the mitigation of space debris.178 Mindful of space’s critical role in attaining many of the SDGs, the Committee put forth guidelines to facilitate capacity building without prejudice to any one nation-states’ economic capabilities. To be sure, the Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities are an important step forward, but many delegates reiterated the importance of developing binding instruments, particularly in light of developments in "space resource exploitation, large constellations, and space debris remediation."179 Looking forward, research continues to advance the availability of debris mitigation mechanisms, such as the European Space Agency’s newly-commissioned ClearSpace-1 satellite.180 Mission objectives increasingly include end-of-life procedures to place satellites in appropriate orbits to decrease clutter in areas where active satellites operate.181 In the context of private entities, Planetary Resources—originally positioned to become a principle player in the space mining industry—merged with Consensys Space and quickly launched TruSat, a crowd-sourced situational awareness forum that compiles the reports of private citizens to track objects in geospace.182 These developments instill confidence in the international community’s sentiments toward ameliorating this ever-approaching catastrophe. It is with great hope that this trend continues, and COPUOS promulgates binding regulations to ensure the sustainability of geospace for the common heritage of mankind. "But we can never do nothing. That which we have done for thousands of years is also action. It also produces evils."183
Treating space as a commons solves orbital debris. Current non-binding agreements are not enough.
Silverstein and Panda ‘3/9 - Benjamin Silverstein ~research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MA, International Relations, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs BA, International Affairs, George Washington University~ and Ankit Panda ~Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AB, Princeton University~, "Space Is a Great Commons. It’s Time to Treat It as Such." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Web). March 9, 2021. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/09/space-is-great-commons.-it-s-time-to-treat-it-as-such-pub-84018 AT The failure to manage Earth orbits as a commons undermines safety and predictability, exposing space operators to growing risks such as collisions with other satellites and debris. The long-standing debris problem has been building for decades and demands an international solution.¶ Competing states need to coalesce behind a commons-based understanding of Earth orbits to set the table for a governance system to organize space traffic and address rampant debris. New leadership in the United States can spur progress on space governance by affirming that Earth orbits are a great commons. So far, President Joe Biden and his administration have focused on major space projects, but a relatively simple policy declaration that frames Earth orbits as a great commons can support efforts to negotiate space governance models for issues like debris mitigation and remediation. The Biden administration can set the stage to pursue broad space policy goals by establishing a consensus among states, particularly those with the most invested in Earth orbits, that space is a great commons.¶ THE PRESSING NEED FOR SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ The Earth orbits that provide the majority of benefits to states and commercial ventures represent only a tiny fraction of outer space as a whole. Competition for the limited volume of these Earth orbits is especially fierce since two satellites cannot be in the same place at the same time and not all orbits are equally useful for all missions. The number of objects residing in Earth orbits is now at an all-time high, with most new objects introduced into orbits at altitudes of between 400 and 700 kilometers above sea level. Millions of pieces of debris in Earth orbits pose a threat to continuing space operations. For instance, the final U.S. space shuttle missions faced 1-in-300 odds of losing a space vehicle or crew member to orbital debris or micrometeoroid impacts.¶ Collisions with fragments of orbital litter as small as a few millimeters across can ruin satellites and end missions. Current technologies cannot track all of these tiny pieces of debris, leaving space assets at the mercy of undetectable, untraceable, and unpredictable pieces of space junk. Some researchers have determined that the debris population in low Earth orbit is already self-sustaining, meaning that collisions between space objects will produce debris more rapidly than natural forces, like atmospheric drag, can remove it from orbit.¶ States—namely the United States, Russia, China, and India—have exacerbated this debris accumulation trend by testing kinetic anti-satellite capabilities or otherwise purposefully fragmenting their satellites in orbit. These states, along with the rest of the multilateral disarmament community, are currently at an impasse on establishing future space governance mechanisms that can address the debris issue. A portion of this impasse may be attributable to disparate views of the nature of outer space in the international context. Establishing a clear view among negotiating parties that Earth orbits should be treated as a great commons would establish a basis for future agreements that reduce debris-related risks.¶ Beyond debris-generating, kinetic anti-satellite weapons tests, revolutionary operating concepts challenge existing space traffic management practices. For instance, commercial ventures are planning networks of thousands of satellites to provide low-latency connectivity on Earth and deploying them by the dozens. States are following this trend. Some are considering transitioning away from using single (or few) exquisite assets in higher orbits and toward using many satellites in low Earth orbits. These new operational concepts could lead to an increase in collision risks.¶ Without new governance agreements, problems related to debris, heavy orbital traffic, and harmful interference will only intensify. Debris in higher orbits can persist for a century or more. The costs of adapting to increasingly polluted orbits would be immense, and the opportunity costs would be even higher. For instance, all else being equal, hardening satellites against collisions increases their mass and volume, in turn raising launch costs per satellite. These costs, rooted in a failure to govern space as a commons, will be borne by all space actors, including emerging states and commercial entities.¶ EXISTING FORMS OF SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ A well-designed governance system, founded on a widespread understanding of Earth orbits as a great commons, could temper these risks. Currently, space is not wholly unregulated, but existing regulations are limited both in scope and implementation. Many operators pledge to follow national regulations and international guidelines, but decentralized accountability mechanisms limit enforcement. These guidelines also do not cover the full range of potentially risky behaviors in space. For example, while some space operators can maneuver satellites to avoid collisions, there are no compulsory rules or standards on who has the right of way.¶ At the interstate level, seminal multilateral agreements provide some more narrow guidance on what is and is not acceptable in space. Most famously, the Outer Space Treaty affirms that outer space "shall be free for exploration and use by all states without discrimination of any kind" and that "there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies." Similar concepts of Earth orbits being a great commons arise in subsequent international texts. Agreements like the Liability Convention impose fault-based liability for debris-related collisions in space, but it is difficult to prove fault in this regime in part because satellite owners and operators have yet to codify a standard of care in space, and thus the regime does not clearly disincentivize debris creation in orbit. Other rules of behavior in Earth orbits have been more successful in reducing harmful interference between satellite operations, but even these efforts are limited in scope.¶ States have acceded to supranational regulations of the most limited (and thus most valuable) Earth orbits. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) coordinates, but does not authorize, satellite deployments and operations in geosynchronous orbits and manages radiofrequency spectrum assignments in other regions of space to reduce interference between satellites. These coordination activities are underpinned by the ITU’s constitution, which reminds states "that radio frequencies and any associate orbits . . . are limited natural resources," indicating a commons-based approach to governing the radiofrequency spectrum. However, the union’s processes are still adapting to new operational realities in low Earth orbit, and these rules were never designed to address issues like debris.
Current law governing space bans state appropriation, BUT ALLOWS private appropriation. A true global commons regime would require a form of democratic governance that ensures the equitable use of space resources and overcomes the expansion of neoliberal capitalism into outer space.
Dardot 18 ~Pierre Dardot, "What democracy for the global commons?," The Commons and a New Global Governance, ed. Samuel Cogolati and Jan Wouters (2018). https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/58613276/What'Democracy'-'Dardot'Leuwen'2018.pdf?1552469271=andresponse-content-disposition=inline3B+filename3DWhat'democracy'for'the'global'commons.pdfandExpires=1642726034andSignature=YJi8AG6~~Y—-mP0qsop4i3t~Z5bVLtQYwuDtUdXm6sdKaYwCJFFzQOL-OiY9nIH~JZsophnChwMlUMSGOCDVh7NhHmUonD28k9fU9PrfN2nYTNV2x8XnvoK2KtelSRvRyWN78eA7uC1isTAf1pO5~abPS9XQnORhjp9nPXjpIuBqLrrJhIUCKNjEorJ0u1h63DxkORBKVZfFh-TawG~PS~WdamGNqfljxjaP1G5bG-hUh1aNw0CuXhnqdd8yeH0-uT7iXVNu8cDl2zOtobIiAmD0SBKxjUXP8SYLkvNO0BETnpIzetK7gW8yksHtYjt-WasarhkMQpHeNwvJOY8QeA''andKey-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA~ CT Using ‘commons’ as a noun, thus, implies a methodological break with this reification of common things, as well as with the logic underlying the classification of goods in economic theory. A ‘commons’ is first and foremost an institutional affair and, more specifically, an institutional space defined by collectively developed practical rules. What is most important is the dimension of instituting the activity, and not the technical characteristics of things and goods. Here lies the essential difference between common goods and the common(s). We must specify, therefore, that any commons, insofar as it is instituted as such, is a good in an ethical and political sense. By contrast, any good that is capable of being purchased and sold, is not in itself a commons. This means that a commons is a good only under the condition that it is not a possession or an acquisition. In other words, once it is instituted, a commons is inalienable and inappropriable. It creates a space within which use prevails over ownership. It is, thus, not a resource in itself – even when it is related to one. In this way we understand a commons to be the active link between an object, a place, a natural resource (for example, a waterfall or a forest), or something artificial (for example, a theatre or a square) and the collective activity of those who take charge of it, preserve it, maintain it and take care of it. This activity is not external to the commons, but instead inherent in it. If we take this to be the definition of every common, then a third implication is that a common, regardless of its specific designation, requires self-government or democratic government. The very act of establishing a common is in and of itself a democratic act. The act of governing a common is nothing more than the continuation of the democratic act; it is thus a sort of continuation of the institution. It consists of reviving this institution by critically assessing its collective rules, whenever the situation demands it. As such, the governance of the common can only proceed from the principle of democracy – the non-democratic governance of a common would threaten, in the short-term, the very existence of this common. I call this the principle of the common, this time in the singular form. For that purpose, I refer to the Latin etymology of this word: the common, or ‘cum-munus’, is the co-obligation that results from co-participation in the same activity. This co-obligation cannot proceed from the simple fact of belonging. Democracy is, in essence, co-participation in public affairs. The Occupy movement (for example, the anti-austerity movement in Spain, also referred to as the 15-M Movement or the Indignados, or the wave of protests in 2013 to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Gezi Park) brought with it a strong anti-oligarchic critique of contemporary political representation, advocating for ‘real democracy’. Most notable is that this democratic requirement is strongly tied to ecological claims based on preserving the ‘commons’ (urban spaces in particular) against any sort of private or state enclosure. It then becomes evident that the commons (in the plural) cannot but be established or governed but by the implementation of the principle of the common (in the singular), which is to say, democracy. To sum up, common use requires self-government. Yet these examples would seem to speak in favour of the establishment of a local democracy, confined within specific geographic limits (for example, a neighbourhood or a city). Aristotle argued for a similar sort of constraint, pointing that beyond a certain number, citizens could no longer know each other. This capacity to mutually engage with one another was, according to him, an important condition for the exercise of democracy. Thus emerges a challenge I will here try to tackle: what sort of democracy is required for commons which are not local, but global in nature – global commons? My thesis is that this democracy can only be global. It remains to be seen what this sort of global democracy should look like. CURRENT PARADIGMS TO DEAL WITH THE UNLIMITED COSMOCAPITALISM With neoliberal capitalism we have come to know a singular historical phenomenon, which I will refer to as ‘cosmocapitalism’. How can this be understood? Cosmocapitalism is not merely a geographical or spatial extension of capitalism, since this extension appeared along with the birth of capitalism. It represents capitalism’s tendency to become universal. By this, I mean that capital tends to submit all aspects of human existence, even those most intimate and subjective, along with the natural world, to the market’s logic, which is nothing more than the logic of competition. The terms ‘world’ and ‘cosmos’ do not describe the planet in a physical sense, or even the global population, but rather the political framework, with its institutional and normative qualities whereby the expansion of the market’s logic becomes possible. Max Weber already described the idea of an immense cosmos which imposes its economic activity on the individual caught within the market’s grasp (Weber, 2002). Today, this cosmos has grown beyond the single economic sphere to include the social sphere. 3.1 Humanity’s Common Heritage Paradigm and the Appropriation of Space A first example will allow us to highlight this logic of limitlessness by examining the delegation of tasks between the state and private enterprises. On 25 November 2015, just a few days before the opening of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris, Barack Obama passed law H.R.2262, which provided authorization for private American companies to use natural resources from outer space (US Congress, 2015). As we know, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty established the legal status of outer space in the following manner (United Nations, 1967). Article 1 acknowledged that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, implying free and equal access without discrimination of any kind. Article 2 established that ‘Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means’. These two conditions, equal access for all and non-ownership, are strictly complementary and both refer to subjects recognized by international law, that is to say, the states: ‘national appropriation’ is state ownership and non-appropriation refers to non-appropriation by states only. It is precisely from this ambiguity that the law (US Congress, 2015) was cleverly enacted on 25 November 2015. Its name is already quite self-evident: US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. In a nutshell, the Act gives any United States (US) citizen involved in commercial exploration and exploitation of an asteroid or space resource, the right to own, possess, transport, use, and sell this resource provided it is in accordance with the applicable legislation. This amounts to giving American companies a property right over space resources in due form (Calimaq, 2015). Yet, the law passed by Congress seems to pretend the contrary, as it provides a so-called ‘Disclaimer of Extraterritorial Sovereignty’ in Section 3 of the Act (US Congress, 2015) By the enactment of this Act, the United States– Exercises its jurisdiction over United States citizens and vessels, and foreign persons and vessels otherwise subject to its jurisdiction, in the exercise of the high seas freedom to engage in exploration for, and commercial recovery of, hard mineral resources of the deep seabed in accordance with generally accepted principles of international law recognized by the United States; but Does not thereby assert sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any areas or resources in the deep seabed. We can clearly see how this law circumvents the prohibition of national appropriation articulated by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty: the prohibition forbids states themselves from ‘national appropriation by claim of sovereignty’, but it does not prevent a private company from exploring or exploiting space resources for commercial purposes. It goes without saying that the enactment of this law was very much applauded by private companies planning to embark on asteroid mining. What is remarkable about this law is that it confirms the international commitment of the US not to assert sovereignty over any space resource, while simultaneously conferring private companies the right to appropriate resources therein without any restriction. Under the Outer Space Treaty, the legal status of the ‘common things’ (res communes), under which certain resources are known to be common by nature (as in Roman law), is not formally addressed. Under Article I of the Outer Space Treaty, the outer space is not even declared to be the ‘common heritage of mankind’, but simply the ‘province of all mankind’ (United Nations, 1967). The notion of ‘common heritage’ was only explicitly introduced in 1967 to deal with the legal status of the deep seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (United Nations General Assembly, 1967). Regardless of the ambiguity of this notion, particularly regarding the holder of such heritage, the idea of ‘heritage’ implies a double duty to both preserve and transmit it. However, international law limits the right of use for states only, as they alone are faced with the prohibition of appropriation. We are, therefore, presented with a way of extrapolating the res communes category inherited from Roman law, insofar as non-appropriation and common use are present, but subordinate to the goodwill of the states. Thus, we are faced with a cheap if not unfinished version of a ‘common’, which is entrusted to states, and limits state sovereignty without even calling it into question. With the Competitiveness Act (US Congress, 2015), we are faced with an act of state sovereignty that manages to circumvent the prohibition of appropriation by a sovereign state without formally violating it. This represents a sort of ‘delegation’ under which the state, on the one hand, grants its citizens a legal title that it denies to itself, on the other, it does so in order to better guarantee it to those to whom it has been delegated. The imperium (state sovereignty) gives full licence for all candidates to the dominium, to privately control and appropriate any resources they are able to seize: statutory law enforces beforehand the power that technology provides. Beyond this collusion between the state and private companies, what emerges here is the powerful homology between state and private ownership: imperium and dominium appear to be based on two forms of a similar logic of ownership, which affirm one another. The primary challenge facing the heritage of mankind paradigm is that it does not fundamentally break with interstate logic and, as such, leaves leeway for private appropriation. 3.2 The Global Public Goods Paradigm and the Value of Biodiversity A second example allows us to unveil the same neoliberal capitalist logic at work within the realm of the destruction of the biosphere. At the end of the 1980s, with the momentum of the pollution rights initiated by Reagan, George H. W. Bush encouraged the expansion of the market endorsing the ‘No Net Loss’ goal (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: p. 45). The seemingly small adjective ‘net’ carries with it a heavy connotation. It does not mean that we do not have the right to destroy biodiversity but rather, the opposite. Indeed, under the ‘No Net Loss’ principle, we have the right to destroy biodiversity as long as we replace whatever has been destroyed elsewhere. In other words, damages resulting from human activities must be balanced by at least equivalent gains. For example, we have the right to destroy ten acres of forest in one area, as long as we plant ten acres of trees elsewhere, within the next 30 years, because once the new trees have grown, it will not make any difference. In market lingo, this is referred to as ‘biodiversity offsetting’. The neoliberal argument is the same and is now well-established – we have failed to obtain our reduction goals, so we must adapt our strategy by trying new financial mechanisms, which are much more effective than the inefficient laws and regulations. That these so-called ‘laws and regulations’ have failed because they have bet on the market must be hidden. It is always the same explanation – if we failed, it is not because we conceded to the market, but rather the opposite, because we did not sufficiently take advantage of it. What is the relationship between this logic of compensation and actual biodiversity, which is made up of the interaction between complex systems, and not of detachable and interchangeable parts? A good example comes from the Brazilian company Vale, which sought to present eucalyptus plantations as a form of reforestation of the Amazon rainforest whose destruction it has actively contributed to. The logic of this compensation can be understood as equivalency logic in its most literal sense. That is, it assumes that there is a commensurability between the Amazon rainforest and eucalyptus plantations, which would affirm their equal value. This type of reasoning is completely indifferent to the sort of relationship a tree has with the soil: the fact that the eucalyptus, which originated from Australia, actually dries up the Amazonian soil, is not at all taken into consideration (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: pp. 94–5). As Marx so aptly described it in the first Volume of his major book Capital (1992), the logic behind market equivalency is at its core a logic of indifference to the qualitative differences that exist between different types of work, and the products that stem from each. What is remarkable here is that we are not referring to the products of human work but instead to living ecosystems. Here we have come to a critical point: the marketing of biodiversity requires that we assign value to something that is not, in fact, a product of work. This argument was reaffirmed by Pavel Sukhdev, a banker who has directed the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 2007: ‘We take advantage of nature because it has value. But we lose it because it is free’ (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: p. 62). Thus, ‘~t~he economy has become the currency of politics’ (sic), we have to learn to understand ‘~t~he economic value of nature’ and express it in a way that is clear to political decision makers. In essence, we must remedy the ‘~i~nvisible economics of nature’ by assigning to it a monetary value or a price. In order to carry out this task we must employ a calculation: in this way, the pollination of trees and flowers by bees constitutes an economically invisible service whose value is estimated at 200 billion dollars, which is almost 8 per cent of the global agricultural production on earth according to Pavel Sukhdev (ibid.: p. 9). The same principle can be applied to pure air or drinking water – the services they render become more and more valuable as they become increasingly rare. Scarcity has always determined value, except that now scarcity represents the services provided by nature. But what exactly does the notion of an economically assessable ‘service’ mean? What vision of nature does it propose and is this conceptualization really new? For a long time, biodiversity was conceived of as a group of resources comprised of several distinct elements (genes, species, habitats and so on), which were capable of being owned, purchased and sold. This conception prevailed in Rio during the Convention on Biological Diversity (United Nations, 1992). But, at the end of the twentieth century, a more dynamic representation emerged which posited that ecosystems should be recognized as the ‘third level of biodiversity’, situated above genes and species (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: pp. 164–166). Now processes and flows take precedence over individual entities and elements. Although we can measure the intrinsic value of the latter, we can only appreciate the value of process and flow in terms of ‘services’. It is, thus, not biodiversity in and of itself which is valuable, but more so the services rendered by the ecosystems that possess value. Hence the notion of ‘ecosystem services’, consisting of streams of natural capital stock which, when combined with human industrial activities, gives way to human welfare (ibid.: pp. 59 and 165). ‘Provisioning services’ (related to ‘resources’: food, wood, grains and so on), ‘regulating services’ (the climate, rainfall, water quality), and ‘cultural services’ (spiritual or recreational value of nature) can be counted among such services. Biobanks sell shares to protect species threatened by deforestation to the very companies who carry out such acts (ibid.: p. 154). Many are unwavering in their belief that the biosphere as a whole should be treated as natural capital. In keeping with this line of thought, the following shift occurs: the biosphere should not enter the commercial sphere merely as a commodity (the logic underlying the sale of timber and industrial capitalism, marketing ‘biological resources’ and patented genes, and so on), but also and most importantly as an asset (that is, within the context of securities eligible for future revenue based on the logic of annuities) (ibid.: p. 166). Thus, we move from the simple commodification of nature, typical of industrial capitalism, which emphasizes producing goods, to neoliberal capitalist financialization and, simultaneously, from the portrayal of nature as a ‘resource’ to its representation as capital generating a ‘flow of services’. How does the theory of GPGs (Kaul et al., 1999) allow us to fight against this trend to financialization? Is GPGs theory not designed, on the contrary, to promote governance of private and state actors? As we know, beyond the criteria relative to the beneficiaries of such goods (the publicum which turns these goods into global goods), this theory distinguishes between three classes of GPGs: global natural goods (for example, ozone layer, climate stability); (ii) goods that constitute man-made heritage (for example, knowledge, cultural heritage, the Internet); and (iii) goods that result from global politics (for example, peace, health, financial stability). While the first class represents natural goods, the other two result from human activity. However, the distinction between these three distinct classes becomes blurred in the case of the negative consequences flowing from poorly managed non-renewable energy. As a result of global policies, global natural goods slide into the third category of GPGs. Moreover, an economistic approach in terms of supply requires that these natural goods are reduced to ‘stock variables’ like the goods of the second category, whereas the goods of the third category are conceived as ‘flow variables’ since a continued effort is required to ensure their potential. But if natural assets are now part of the third category, should we conclude that they have become ‘flow variables’? In any case, the evolution from ‘stock’ to ‘flow’ corresponds precisely with the sort of change that accompanies and legitimizes nature’s financialization. Finally, and most worryingly, the value attributed to biological diversity is estimated by reference to the costs of protecting it. Thus, biological diversity enters the category of public goods that have an ‘intrinsic existence value’ ‘in an effort to grapple with and ultimately define the intrinsic worth of protecting the ~good~’ (ibid.: p. 253). We would be better off articulating that this is not intrinsic at all: biodiversity has no value of its own and is not a good in and of itself; instead, its value is derived from the fact that it is the result of subjective appreciation, which amounts to recognizing that this is a good. We see what can result from the ambiguity surrounding the term ‘good’. But overall this confirms the rejection of the notion of biodiversity’s intrinsic value in favour of the idea that value is assigned by an external party, which expresses in its own way the notion of ‘ecosystem services’. 4. COSMODEMOCRACY Given the logic underlying cosmocapitalism, we must find out a new type of global democracy if we wish to have any chance of halting and reversing it. Such a democracy will be referred to below as cosmodemocracy. It is indeed linked to cosmopolitanism; that is, to the idea of global politics and global citizenship. 4.1 Different Types of Cosmopolitanism 4.1.1 Cosmopolitanism as a project Cosmopolitanism can be defined as the feeling and consciousness of belonging to the same world. It can be expressed in many different ways. It can represent the awareness of living in the same world or sharing the same human condition, the feeling of sharing a common, confined space, and the feeling of being affected by everything that affects another part of humanity. According to Kant’s well-known dictum, ‘a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world’ (Kant, 1977). The awareness of belonging to a shared world has been expressed in noteworthy works of philosophy. This is particularly true of stoicism, within which man is seen as belonging to part of a ‘Universal’ or ‘Upper City’ and whose political city is just a small image. Individuals are then viewed as a citizens of the world, but this citizenship is not at all political. By virtue of its universalism, Christianity was able to modify and extend its tradition through the ‘catholicity’ of the Church. The idea that human rights are not limited to any specific country, but are universal in nature, arose from Christian universalism and found support from various scholars and lawyers, including Anacharsis Cloots, author of Bases constitutionnelles de la République du genre humain (1793). Yet the framework remains one in which the world is assimilated to the nation: the human race becomes the only ruler so that the Universal Republic must identify with the Republic of Mankind and there is only one nation that corresponds with humanity itself. With Kant’s Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay (1795), cosmopolitanism begins to take a new meaning. Kant distinguishes between three overlapping components of public law: municipal or civil law (ius civitatis), which should be a republican constitution; (ii) international law or the law of nations (ius gentium), which provides for the right of states to engage in mutual relations or international law via a federation of free states; and (iii) cosmopolitan law (ius cosmopoliticum). However, cosmopolitan law is intended to guarantee the right of ‘hospitality’ to all individuals – which is a right of access merely to promote trade. In this way, cosmopolitanism restricts the cosmos to the commercial sphere without establishing a genuine political citizenship. 4.1.2 Factual cosmopolitanization What was once only an idea or ideal has become part of how we now live. Cosmopolitanism has become the new reality, both in an objective and subjective sense, and what Ulrich Beck has called ‘banal cosmopolitanism’ (2006: p. 26). This factual cosmopolitanization, borne out of the growth of interdependence and transnationalization of ways of life and cultures, should not be confused with transnational political activities and institutional creations, even if the link between these phenomena seems quite obvious. Factual cosmopolitanization is essential to the world’s inhabitants, albeit to varying degrees. It became extremely important at the turn of the century. With the rise of global risks, it began to haunt our minds, penetrating the banality of everyday life, for example, with respect to food, altering our aesthetic tastes, and changing our approach to interstate relations by giving preference to human rights over sovereignty. It is no longer a matter of assigning positive value to the world’s political organization by imagining what the future might hold. It is rather about establishing and characterizing the multitude of processes that transform everyday life up to the point where they lead to the relativization of national borders. According to Beck, ‘reality itself has become cosmopolitan’ (ibid.: p. 10). With globalization and resistance to the latter, a new era has emerged – that of ‘reflexive modernity’. In order to see, understand, and analyse it, one must abandon the ‘national perspective’ and ‘methodological nationalism’, 4.1.3 Normative and institutional cosmopolitanism What Beck also failed to see is that normative and institutional cosmopolitanism do not flow freely and naturally from factual cosmopolitanization. This is so, firstly, because of the opposition of forces that have no interest in seeing their powers being eroded. Second, and most importantly, because a strictly empirical conceptualization of factual cosmopolitanization runs the risk of overlooking immediately what is generated from internal relations of domination in national and local settings, and what is beyond local level democratic control. Now, because the local and national spheres are losing their ‘naturalness’, for those who live in those areas, the effects of globalization imply that the normative and institutional issues arise with urgency in a political form that is antagonistic. Factual cosmopolitanization is no longer a ‘happy globalization’, but for many the dispossession of their destiny. We must give credit to Karl Renner, Austrian Social Democrat and Austro-Marxist, for encouraging the reflection on the switch between a de facto internationalism to an institutionalized internationalism (Renner, 1998). This de facto internationalism, comprised of economic, social and cultural forms of internationalization, demonstrates how the world’s legal fabric extends beyond the mere sum of nations. In the same way that the nation is the product of a historical development which culminates in its legal capacity at the end of the eighteenth century, the ‘internation’, to use Mauss’ term, will inevitably find its legal form from a substrate of facts that is poorly or not at all seen, but as such, represents a legal duty. The term ‘international’ should not be taken at face value, as it represents much more than international relations between states. Indeed, it involves the way in which the world is constructed, legally and politically, in its post-Westphalian organization. According to Mauss, the enemy is state sovereignty, as it represents an obstacle to real human interests. We are moving towards a world order that will no longer be limited by the coexistence of sovereign nation states, what Renner calls the ‘institutional Oecumene’. The creation of the League of Nations in 1920 gave way to a new era, as the ‘community of nations’ was granted legal standing above the states. Renner claims that, as a result of the establishment of the League, a ‘supra-State international law’ appeared in order to guarantee an infra-state national law, which itself protects minorities. However, as Renner argues, this step remained constrained by the desire to freeze the acquired positions after the First World War. We know that this is also exactly what happened in 1945 with the creation of the United Nations: as demonstrated recently during the COP 21, the most glaring contradiction still exists between the interstate logic of a group of sovereign states, and the need for a global community which undermines the sovereignty of each state in order to respect higher principles which cater to the interests of humanity. Hence Renner’s proposal in 1937: delegates representing ‘partial international interests’ (capital, labour, culture and so on) should be members of the League of Nations Council. It is under this condition that international interests would be taken into account, since the representatives in question would not be able to mandate all issues nationally. The question, then, is how to make this global human community exist as such. We can envision this as Renner did when describing a global parliament or, more specifically, a second chamber of representatives in which the people themselves articulate and make decisions about their economic structure and social values, along with their present grievances and hopes for the future (Renner, 1998: p. 74). Yet it is evident that the creation of a supranational chamber does not respond to the needs of those who represent ‘partial international interests’. Indeed, the parliamentary system of representation, with all its inherent vices, is simply replicated on a global scale. In order to overcome the interstate’s limitations, we must decide to make the leap from internationalism and cosmopolitanism to cosmopolitics; that is, to a political organization of humanity 4.2 Cosmopolitics The two paradigms discussed above suffer from a crippling limitation – that of humanity’s common heritage which subjects the ‘common things’ to the interstate logic, and that of GPGs, which leave the latter to the governance of private and state actors. Still, progress has been made in the establishment of humankind law. But, even assuming a legal status was assigned to humanity, this would not suffice, and neither would a cosmopolitan consciousness, in reaching cosmopolitan institutions. How do we overcome the double impasse imposed by the interstate and global private law, while paving the way for humanity’s common form of political activity; which is to say, a real democracy for humanity? I would like to highlight two points which I feel are complementary. The first relates to the institutional architecture of a global democracy and the second concerns the political activity of world citizens. The first requires, above all, a political imagination, and the second assumes that we extend the observation of collective practices and experimentations already underway. 4.2.1 The dual federation of the commons In order to introduce the first point, we must return to our discussion of the commons. Early on in this chapter, we established that the commons are institutional matters to the extent that they determine the rules of common use. In this sense, the commons emerge from what we might legally refer to as the ‘public’, not only in the orthodox economics sense of the collective nature of ‘public goods’, but also in terms of the public in opposition to the private. It is important to note that this public sui generis is non-state public. What exactly does this mean? The state’s public aims to ensure universal access to services but it does so by allowing state administration to monopolize the management of these services, thereby excluding users reduced to mere consumer status. The non-state public of the commons guarantees universal access via user participation in this management. Note that non-state does not mean anti-state, but rather, autonomous from the state. But what are we to make of the state itself? Under what conditions can it itself become a common? And how can we conceptualize its articulation to what belongs to the infra- and supra-state levels? Moreover, how can the different types of commons be organized among themselves? The magnitude of these questions led us to imagine a political system, that of non-centred federalism, which was inspired by Proudhon (1863). Indeed, he designed a dual federation of social and economic organizations, representing the municipalities as well as the production units and working companies, both of which should be governed by the principle of democracy. In a similar way, we can distinguish, on the one hand, the social-economic commons (common of river, common of forest, seed bank, production unit and so on) independently constituted of territoriality and administrative borders and, on the other hand, political commons formed through the process of increasingly integrating territories (municipalities, regions, states, international groupings of states). Yet, in all of this we are neither statists nor anarchists. We are even reluctant to consider a single global government or a single world state, which would imply a centralized form of authority that is incompatible with the democracy required by the institution of the commons. We are supporters of a polyarchic system, which should not be understood as ‘government of the many’ but instead as ‘many governments’ democratically coordinated across the world, which naturally implies a systematic intersection of different types of government, state and non-state, politics, and socio-economics. 4.2.2 Global citizenship These ‘demo-cosmopolitan’ systems will not come from above and they will not emerge from interstate decisions or contractual agreements between private actors. Historically, the exercise of constructive activist citizenship has been an important precursor to the creation of new political institutions. Today, we observe the elements of an authentic political citizenship, which is diverse, decentred and transnational at the same time. This is exemplified by anti-globalization and social movements, in the missions of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International, in the commitment of certain ecological associations to the COP 21, and via initiatives supporting public aid for migrants, and so on. This is not a citizenship that is expected to gain legal recognition, status, rights or duties as part of a state, but instead one that is called to act, engaging in transnational actions by those Beck calls ‘global public interest entrepreneurs’ (2006). We could also refer to them as global commons actors. This non-state and non-statutory citizenship must be thought of in terms of practices aimed at maintaining or acquiring rights rather than formally granting them. Only such transnational citizenship-in-action can give full meaning to the idea of cosmopolitics: politics for the world, as long as the ‘world’ implies what resonates in the Latin term mundus, namely, not the Earth as a planet and not the totality of individuals living on Earth but instead, the living connection between the individuals inhabiting in and the Earth itself. In this sense, the anti-globalization slogan ‘the world is not for sale’ is more meaningful than it might seem at first sight: the world, in itself, is not a ‘thing’ that we can own; it must be recognized as inappropriable and instituted as a common. 5. Conclusion To conclude, instituting the world as a common cannot be understood as an extension of the nation-state or city-state models at the global level. The democracy of the global commons is irreducible to a mere change of scale. Instead, it requires a genuine collective political invention, which is based on the multiplication of self-government at all levels. What is at stake here is the confrontation between two diametrically opposed logics: whereas the logic of the commons is fundamentally plural, polymorphic, non-centred in nature, the logic of state sovereignty as it was constructed in the West is intrinsically linked to an indivisible and absolute centre of power. The solution is not for several sovereignties to overlap on the same territory, as this would be incompatible with the very notion of sovereignty, but for several types of self-governments to limit each other’s power reciprocally.
Development of space resources is still possible with a commons model. Property rights are not necessary. Existing models governing commons encourage responsible development, numerous examples prove.
Saletta Sterling and Orrman-Rossiter 18 ~Sterling Saletta, Morgan; Orrman-Rossiter, Kevin (2018). Can space mining benefit all of humanity?: The resource fund and citizen's dividend model of Alaska, the ‘last frontier’. Space Policy, (), S0265964616300704–. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.02.002~ CT The Outer Space Treaty (OST) came into force in 1967 and, having been ratified by all the major space faring governments as well as some 100 other nations, the Outer Space Treaty serves as the basis for international space law, the current corpus juris spatialis. The treaty declares the exploration and use of outer space shall be for, "the benefit and in the interests of all countries ~27~" and that outer space, as mentioned previously, "shall be the province of all mankind ~27~". With the increased commercialization of space, and the entrance of new actors, both national and private, the OST has come under increased scrutiny, with calls to expand, modify, and even to abrogate it ~35,36~. Issues surrounding the mining of celestial bodies have received particular attention and debate ~37~. Of particular concern is the matter of exploitation licences and property rights ~38~. The OST expressly forbids the "national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by other means" ~27~ of outer space and celestial bodies. This is frequently interpreted to mean that the OST denies private property claims in outer space, some authors and individuals ~39–41~ have argued that appropriation by non-nationalentities is allowed. The Outer Space Treaty, and its terrestrial analogues, UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and the Antarctica Treaty System (ATS) are ‘global commons regimes', though the terminology governing these commons differs and juridical concepts such as "common heritage of humanity" found in UNCLOS (and the Moon Treaty of 1979) and the "common province of mankind" found in the Outer Space Treaty have been interpreted in various manners. Due in part to these varying wordings, interpretations and attendant uncertainties, the need for a more comprehensive framework governing the environmental, ethical, and commercial aspects of space exploration, exploitation and colonization has been highlighted by many authors ~30,33,34~. Some advocates for the commercial exploitation of space claim that the absence of property rights is a barrier to such ventures, and in particular to the mining of celestial bodies such as the Moon or near earth asteroids ~35~. Some have gone so far as to suggest an abrogation of the OST in favor of a treaty that allows something like fee-simple ownership and what might best be called a California gold rush approach to outer space resource exploitation ~36–38~. Advocates of this approach would give something like fee-simple ownership of outer space resources on a ‘first in time, first in right’ basis with no clear licensing regime for such activities ~39~. In recent US law, Title IV of H.R. 2262- the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, grants ownership of asteroid resources to entities obtaining them but attempts to walk a fine line between this approach and international treaty obligations. It does not grant ownership of asteroid themselves, and explicitly states that resource exploitation must be in accordance with federal laws and existing treaty obligations, i.e. the OST ~40~. How such eventual exploitation occurs, and under what precise national and international regulatory and licensing regimes, is thus still a matter for the future to decide. On the other hand, it has also been suggested that modifications and additions to the OST based on terrestrial models will provide sufficient guarantee of the right to make profits from the exploitation of outer space resources. Henry Hertzfeld and Frans von der Dunk argue the current regime does not pose a problem for exploitation rights and that terrestrial models would allow private ventures the right to reasonable returns on investment from resource exploitation in space ~41~. Furthermore, in addition to important, and possibly irreconcilable, differences between a California gold rush style approach and the OST ~42~, arguments suggesting fee-simple or similar ownership is necessary for profitable private outer space resource exploitation simply do not stand in the face of contrary evidence from numerous terrestrial examples. These include offshore oil drilling, mining, timber and grazing operations in the United States and internationally which are regularly and profitably undertaken without ownership ~43~. Thus P. M. Sterns and L. I. Tennen argue that the current international regime does provide an adequate framework for commercial development in space, that fee-simple ownership is unnecessary and: "those who advocate the renunciation and abandonment of the nonappropriation principle are either seeking to increase their own bottom line by disingenuous and deceptive constructs, or lack an appropriate appreciation and respect for international processes ~~44~, p. 2439~". Thus, claims that a lack of private property rights in outer space will be a deterrent to commercial resource exploitation ventures in space do not reflect an adequate reflection and analysis of the manner in which current terrestrial practices might be extended into outer space without abrogating the current treaty regime. Nor would a system based on fee simple ownership be likely to tangibly benefit more than a small proportion of the world's population. Instead, the eventual wealth from exploiting celestial bodies would be concentrated in the hands of a few, exacerbating rather than alleviating existing problems for humanity and global sustainable development. The Outer Space Treaty has provided an effective legal framework for the exploration of outer space for over 50 years. Based on the history of treaty regimes governing other international spaces, UNCLOS and the ATS, it seems likely that, in future, additional protocols and agreements will be layered onto the OST and that calls to abrogate and to negotiate a wholly new treaty system are unlikely to succeed. While low participation in the Moon Agreement, also known as the Moon Treaty of 1979, which has not been ratified by either the United States, Russia, or China, has raised questions of legitimacy, it has recently been argued that the Moon Treaty may receive renewed interest in the international community. René Lefeber argues that, far from stifling commercial ventures, the Moon Agreement "provides the best available option for mankind, states and industry to develop space mineral resources in a harmonious way ~~5~, p. 47~", and that, as resource exploitation in outer space now seems likely, the need to elaborate an international regime to prevent conflict over resources may bring other parties to ratify, accede to, or sign the treaty. Ultimately, some form of international governance of outer space as a global commons ~45~ building on the OST and the current corpus juris spatialis seems both more likely and more desirable than an abrogation of the OST and its replacement with an entirely new treaty regime. Thus, an international regime built upon this existing regime will need to be constructed which takes a balanced approach to space exploration, development and exploitation and which encourages entrepreneurial development but also moves beyond vague utopian platitudes to real and concrete benefits for all of humanity.
1/22/22
JF - Space Commons AC V4
Tournament: Peninsula | Round: 3 | Opponent: Harvard Westlake KD | Judge: Jonathan Meza
AC
====Ambiguities in the OST that allow private appropriation have kicked off a race to develop space, setting the stage for a debris crisis and the domination of space by unaccountable billionaires. Current laws fail due to lax rules and forum shopping.==== Dovey 21 ~Ceridwen Dovey, "Space Exploration At What Price?," Readers Digest Asia Pacific, 5/1/21. https://www.pressreader.com/australia/readers-digest-asia-pacific/20210501/281487869174485~~ CT One environmental risk all stakeholders agree on is that posed by space debris. There’s
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questioned why there’d been no proper consultation with the scientific community before launch.
Advantage 1: Space Debris
Increasing space debris levels inevitably set off a chain of collisions.
away, meaning that there is still time to develop a solution.52
Collisions make orbit unusable, causing nuclear war, mass starvation, and economic destruction.
Les Johnson 13, Deputy Manager for NASA's Advanced Concepts Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Co-Investigator for the JAXA T-Rex Space Tether Experiment and PI of NASA's ProSEDS Experiment, Master's Degree in Physics from Vanderbilt University, Popular Science Writer, and NASA Technologist, Frequent Contributor to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Sodety and Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Space Society, the World Future Society, and MENSA, Sky Alert!: When Satellites Fail, p. 9-12 ~language modified~ Whatever the initial cause, the result may be the same. A satellite destroyed
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, our military advantage over potential adversaries would be dramatically reduced or eliminated.
Advantage 2: Corporate Colonialism
Tech-billionaires advance a vision of private space colonization as a source of infinite resources to cure society’s ills. This rationalizes unrestrained consumption and replicates the logic of imperialism.
Mccormick 21 ~Ted McCormick writes about the history of science, empire, and economic thought. He has a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and teaches at Concordia University in Montreal. "The billionaire space race reflects a colonial mindset that fails to imagine a different world". 8-15-2021. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-billionaire-space-race-reflects-a-colonial-mindset-that-fails-to-imagine-a-different-world-165235. Accessed 12-15-2021; marlborough JH~ It was a time of political uncertainty, cultural conflict and social change. Private
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in defiance of all limits. We are struggling with these consequences today.
If only wealthy elites can tap the vast resources of outer space, we lock in a permanent and unconscionable inequality. Private space colonization amounts to unchecked exploitation and authoritarian corporate control of future settlements. Spencer ‘17
, our rallying cry should be this: Keep the red planet red!
This private expansion into space results in corporate colonization of planets that undermines the interests of the rest of humanity. Spencer ’17
Spencer, Keith A. ~senior editor at Salon~"Against Mars-a-Lago: Why SpaceX's Mars Colonization Plan Should Terrify You." Salon, Salon.com, Oct. 8 2017, https://www.salon.com/2017/10/08/against-mars-a-lago-why-spacexs-mars-colonization-plan-should-terrify-you/. When CEO Elon Musk announced last month that his aerospace company SpaceX would be sending cargo missions to Mars by 2022 — the first step in his tourism-driven colonization plan — a small cheer went up among space and science enthusiasts. Writing in the New York Post, Stephen Carter called Musk’s vision "inspiring," a salve for politically contentious times. "Our species has turned its vision inward; our image of human possibility has grown cramped and pessimistic," Carter wrote: "We dream less of reaching the stars than of winning the next election; less of maturing as a species than of shunning those who are different; less of the blessings of an advanced technological tomorrow than of an apocalyptic future marked by a desperate struggle to survive. Maybe a focus on the possibility of reaching our nearest planetary neighbor will help change all that." The Post editorial reflected a growing media consensus that humankind’s ultimate destiny is the colonization of the solar system — yet on a private basis. American government leaders generally agree with this vision. Obama egged on the privatization of NASA by legislating a policy shift to private commercial spaceflight, awarding government contracts to private companies like SpaceX to shuttle supplies to the International Space Station. "Governments can develop new technology and do some of the exciting early exploration but in the long run it's the private sector that finds ways to make profit, finds ways to expand humanity," said Dr. S. Pete Worden, the director of the NASA Ames Research lab, in 2012. And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote of his ambitions to bring American-style capitalism to the stars: "In the years to come, American industry must be the first to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-Earth orbit, to expand the sphere of the economy beyond this blue marble," Pence wrote. One wonders if these luminaries know their history. There has been no instance in which a private corporation became a colonizing power that did not end badly for everyone besides the shareholders. The East India Company is perhaps the finest portent of Musk’s Martian ambitions. In 1765, the East India Company forced the Mughal emperor to sign a legal agreement that would essentially permit their company to become the de facto rulers of Bengal. The East India Company then collected taxes and used its private army, which was over 200,000 strong by the early 19th century, to repress those who got in the way of its profit margins. "It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath," writes William Dalrymple in the Guardian. "It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history." The East India Company came to colonize much of the Indian subcontinent. In the modern era, an era in which the right of corporations to do what they want, unencumbered, has become a sacrosanct right in the eyes of many politicians, the lessons of the East India Company seem to have been all but forgotten. As Dalrymple writes: Democracy as we know it was considered an advance over feudalism because of the power that it gave the commoners to share in collective governance. To privately colonize a nation, much less a planet, means ceding governance and control back to corporations whose interest is not ours, and indeed, is always at odds with workers and residents — particularly in a resource-limited environment like a spaceship or the red planet. Even if, as Musk suggests, a private foundation is put in charge of running the show on Mars, their interests will inherently be at odds with the workers and employees involved. After all, a private foundation is not a democracy; and as major philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation illustrate, often do the bidding of their rich donors, and take an important role in ripening industries and regions for exploitation by Western corporations. Yet Mars’ colonization is a bit different than Bengal, namely in that it is not merely underdeveloped; it is undeveloped. How do you start an entirely new economy on a virgin world with no industry? After all, Martian resource extraction and trade with Earth is not feasible; the cost of transporting material across the solar system is astronomical, and there are no obvious minerals on Mars that we don’t already have in abundance on Earth. The only basis for colonization of Mars that Musk can conceive of is one based on tourism: the rich pay an amount — Musk quotes the ticket price at $200,000 if he can get 1 million tourists to pay that — that entitles them to a round-trip ticket. And while they’re on Mars and traveling to it, they luxuriate: Musk has assured that the trip would be "fun." This is what makes Musk’s Mars vision so different than, say, the Apollo missions or the International Space Station. This isn’t really exploration for humanity’s sake — there’s not that much science assumed here, as there was in the Moon missions. Musk wants to build the ultimate luxury package, exclusively for the richest among us. Musk isn’t trying to build something akin to Matt Damon’s spartan research base in "The Martian." He wants to build Mars-a-Lago. And an economy based on tourism, particularly high-end tourism, needs employees — even if a high degree of automation is assumed. And as I’ve written about before, that means a lot of labor at the lowest cost possible. Imagine signing away years of your life to be a housekeeper in the Mars-a-Lago hotel, with your communications, water, food, energy usage, even oxygen tightly managed by your employer, and no government to file a grievance to if your employer cuts your wages, harasses you, cuts off your oxygen. Where would Mars-a-Lago's employees turn if their rights were impinged upon? Oh wait, this planet is run privately? You have no rights. Musk's vision for Mars colonization is inherently authoritarian. The potential for the existence of the employees of the Martian tourism industry to slip into something resembling indentured servitude, even slavery, cannot be underestimated. We have government regulations for a reason on Earth — to protect us from the fresh horror Musk hopes to export to Mars. If he's considered these questions, he doesn't seem to care; for Musk, the devil's in the technological and financial details. The social and political are pretty uninteresting to him. This is unsurprising; accounts from those who have worked closely with him hint that he, like many CEOs, may be a sociopath. Even as a space enthusiast, I cannot get excited about the private colonization of Mars. You shouldn’t be either. This is not a giant leap for mankind; this is the next great leap in plutocracy. The mere notion that global wealth is so unevenly distributed that a small but sufficient sum of rich people could afford this trip is unsettling, indicative of the era of astonishing economic inequality in which we suffer. Thomas Frank, writing in Harpers, once wrote of a popular t-shirt he sighted while picnicking in a small West Virginia coal town: "Mine it union or keep it in the ground." The idea, of course, is that the corporations interested in resource extraction do not care whatsoever about their workers’ health, safety, or well-being; the union had their interests at heart, and was able to negotiate for safety, job security, and so on. I’d like to see a similar t-shirt or bumper sticker emerge among scientists and space enthusiasts: "Explore Mars democratically, or keep it in the sky."
Neoliberalism destroys ethics, locks in poverty and exploitation, decimates the environment, and causes war.
Werlhof 15 – Claudia, Professor of Political Science/Women's Studies, University Innsbruck (Austria), 2015 ("Neoliberal Globalization: Is There an Alternative to Plundering the Earth?" Global Research, May 25th, Available Online at http://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberal-globalization-is-there-an-alternative-to-plundering-the-earth/24403) At the center of both old and new economic liberalism lies: Self-interest and individualism; segregation of ethical principles and economic affairs, in other words: a process of ‘de-bedding’ economy from society; economic rationality as a mere cost-benefit calculation and profit maximization; competition as the essential driving force for growth and progress; specialization and the replacement of a subsistence economy with profit-oriented foreign trade (‘comparative cost advantage’); and the proscription of public (state) interference with market forces.~3~ Where the new economic liberalism outdoes the old is in its global claim. Today’s economic liberalism functions as a model for each and everyone: all parts of the economy, all sectors of society, of life/nature itself. As a consequence, the once "de-bedded" economy now claims to "im-bed" everything, including political power. Furthermore, a new twisted "economic ethics" (and with it a certain idea of "human nature") emerges that mocks everything from so-called do-gooders to altruism to selfless help to care for others to a notion of responsibility.~4~ This goes as far as claiming that the common good depends entirely on the uncontrolled egoism of the individual and, especially, on the prosperity of transnational corporations. The allegedly necessary "freedom" of the economy – which, paradoxically, only means the freedom of corporations – hence consists of a freedom from responsibility and commitment to society. The maximization of profit itself must occur within the shortest possible time; this means, preferably, through speculation and "shareholder value". It must meet as few obstacles as possible. Today, global economic interests outweigh not only extra-economic concerns but also national economic considerations since corporations today see themselves beyond both community and nation.~5~ A "level playing field" is created that offers the global players the best possible conditions. This playing field knows of no legal, social, ecological, cultural or national "barriers".~6~ As a result, economic competition plays out on a market that is free of all non-market, extra-economic or protectionist influences – unless they serve the interests of the big players (the corporations), of course. The corporations’ interests – their maximal growth and progress – take on complete priority. This is rationalized by alleging that their well-being means the well-being of small enterprises and workshops as well. The difference between the new and the old economic liberalism can first be articulated in quantitative terms: after capitalism went through a series of ruptures and challenges – caused by the "competing economic system", the crisis of capitalism, post-war "Keynesianism" with its social and welfare state tendencies, internal mass consumer demand (so-called Fordism), and the objective of full employment in the North. The liberal economic goals of the past are now not only euphorically resurrected but they are also "globalized". The main reason is indeed that the competition between alternative economic systems is gone. However, to conclude that this confirms the victory of capitalism and the "golden West" over "dark socialism" is only one possible interpretation. Another – opposing – interpretation is to see the "modern world system" (which contains both capitalism and socialism) as having hit a general crisis which causes total and merciless competition over global resources while leveling the way for investment opportunities, i.e. the valorization of capital.~7~ The ongoing globalization of neoliberalism demonstrates which interpretation is right. Not least, because the differences between the old and the new economic liberalism can not only be articulated in quantitative terms but in qualitative ones too. What we are witnessing are completely new phenomena: instead of a democratic "complete competition" between many small enterprises enjoying the freedom of the market, only the big corporations win. In turn, they create new market oligopolies and monopolies of previously unknown dimensions. The market hence only remains free for them, while it is rendered unfree for all others who are condemned to an existence of dependency (as enforced producers, workers and consumers) or excluded from the market altogether (if they have neither anything to sell or buy). About fifty percent of the world’s population fall into this group today, and the percentage is rising.~8~ Anti-trust laws have lost all power since the transnational corporations set the norms. It is the corporations – not "the market" as an anonymous mechanism or "invisible hand" – that determine today’s rules of trade, for example prices and legal regulations. This happens outside any political control. Speculation with an average twenty percent profit margin edges out honest producers who become "unprofitable".~9~ Money becomes too precious for comparatively non-profitable, long-term projects, or projects that only – how audacious! – serve a good life. Money instead "travels upwards" and disappears. Financial capital determines more and more what the markets are and do.~10~ By delinking the dollar from the price of gold, money creation no longer bears a direct relationship to production".~11~ Moreover, these days most of us are – exactly like all governments – in debt. It is financial capital that has all the money – we have none.~12~ Small, medium, even some bigger enterprises are pushed out of the market, forced to fold or swallowed by transnational corporations because their performances are below average in comparison to speculation – rather: spookulation – wins. The public sector, which has historically been defined as a sector of not-for-profit economy and administration, is "slimmed" and its "profitable" parts ("gems") handed to corporations (privatized). As a consequence, social services that are necessary for our existence disappear. Small and medium private businesses – which, until recently, employed eighty percent of the workforce and provided normal working conditions – are affected by these developments as well. The alleged correlation between economic growth and secure employment is false. When economic growth is accompanied by the mergers of businesses, jobs are lost.~13~ If there are any new jobs, most are precarious, meaning that they are only available temporarily and badly paid. One job is usually not enough to make a living.~14~ This means that the working conditions in the North become akin to those in the South, and the working conditions of men akin to those of women – a trend diametrically opposed to what we have always been told. Corporations now leave for the South (or East) to use cheap – and particularly female – labor without union affiliation. This has already been happening since the 1970s in the "Export Processing Zones" (EPZs, "world market factories" or "maquiladoras"), where most of the world’s computer chips, sneakers, clothes and electronic goods are produced.~15~ The EPZs lie in areas where century-old colonial-capitalist and authoritarian-patriarchal conditions guarantee the availability of cheap labor.~16~ The recent shift of business opportunities from consumer goods to armaments is a particularly troubling development.~17~ It is not only commodity production that is "outsourced" and located in the EPZs, but service industries as well. This is a result of the so-called Third Industrial Revolution, meaning the development of new information and communication technologies. Many jobs have disappeared entirely due to computerization, also in administrative fields.~18~ The combination of the principles of "high tech" and "low wage"/"no wage" (always denied by "progress" enthusiasts) guarantees a "comparative cost advantage" in foreign trade. This will eventually lead to "Chinese wages" in the West. A potential loss of Western consumers is not seen as a threat. A corporate economy does not care whether consumers are European, Chinese or Indian. The means of production become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially since finance capital – rendered precarious itself – controls asset values ever more aggressively. New forms of private property are created, not least through the "clearance" of public property and the transformation of formerly public and small-scale private services and industries to a corporate business sector. This concerns primarily fields that have long been (at least partly) excluded from the logic of profit – e.g. education, health, energy or water supply/disposal. New forms of so-called enclosures emerge from today’s total commercialization of formerly small-scale private or public industries and services, of the "commons", and of natural resources like oceans, rain forests, regions of genetic diversity or geopolitical interest (e.g. potential pipeline routes), etc.~19~ As far as the new virtual spaces and communication networks go, we are witnessing frantic efforts to bring these under private control as well.~20~ All these new forms of private property are essentially created by (more or less) predatory forms of appropriation. In this sense, they are a continuation of the history of so-called original accumulation which has expanded globally, in accordance with to the motto: "Growth through expropriation!"~21~ Most people have less and less access to the means of production, and so the dependence on scarce and underpaid work increases. The destruction of the welfare state also destroys the notion that individuals can rely on the community to provide for them in times of need. Our existence relies exclusively on private, i.e. expensive, services that are often of much worse quality and much less reliable than public services. (It is a myth that the private always outdoes the public.) What we are experiencing is undersupply formerly only known by the colonial South. The old claim that the South will eventually develop into the North is proven wrong. It is the North that increasingly develops into the South. We are witnessing the latest form of "development", namely, a world system of underdevelopment.~22~ Development and underdevelopment go hand in hand.~23~ This might even dawn on "development aid" workers soon. It is usually women who are called upon to counterbalance underdevelopment through increased work ("service provisions") in the household. As a result, the workload and underpay of women takes on horrendous dimensions: they do unpaid work inside their homes and poorly paid "housewifized" work outside.~24~ Yet, commercialization does not stop in front of the home’s doors either. Even housework becomes commercially co-opted ("new maid question"), with hardly any financial benefits for the women who do the work.~25~ Not least because of this, women are increasingly coerced into prostitution, one of today’s biggest global industries.~26~ This illustrates two things: a) how little the "emancipation" of women actually leads to "equal terms" with men; and b) that "capitalist development" does not imply increased "freedom" in wage labor relations, as the Left has claimed for a long time.~27~ If the latter were the case, then neoliberalism would mean the voluntary end of capitalism once it reaches its furthest extension. This, however, does not appear likely. Today, hundreds of millions of quasi-slaves, more than ever before, exist in the "world system."~28~ The authoritarian model of the "Export Processing Zones" is conquering the East and threatening the North. The redistribution of wealth runs ever more – and with ever accelerated speed – from the bottom to the top. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. The middle classes disappear. This is the situation we are facing. It becomes obvious that neoliberalism marks not the end of colonialism but, to the contrary, the colonization of the North. This new "colonization of the world"~29~ points back to the beginnings of the "modern world system" in the "long 16th century", when the conquering of the Americas, their exploitation and colonial transformation allowed for the rise and "development" of Europe.~30~ The so-called "children’s diseases" of modernity keep on haunting it, even in old age. They are, in fact, the main feature of modernity’s latest stage. They are expanding instead of disappearing. Where there is no South, there is no North; where there is no periphery, there is no center; where there is no colony, there is no – in any case no "Western" – civilization.~31~ Austria is part of the world system too. It is increasingly becoming a corporate colony (particularly of German corporations). This, however, does not keep it from being an active colonizer itself, especially in the East.~32~ Social, cultural, traditional and ecological considerations are abandoned and give way to a mentality of plundering. All global resources that we still have – natural resources, forests, water, genetic pools – have turned into objects of utilization. Rapid ecological destruction through depletion is the consequence. If one makes more profit by cutting down trees than by planting them, then there is no reason not to cut them.~33~ Neither the public nor the state interferes, despite global warming and the obvious fact that the clearing of the few remaining rain forests will irreversibly destroy the earth’s climate – not to mention the many other negative effects of such actions.~34~ Climate, animal, plants, human and general ecological rights are worth nothing compared to the interests of the corporations – no matter that the rain forest is not a renewable resource and that the entire earth’s ecosystem depends on it. If greed, and the rationalism with which it is economically enforced, really was an inherent anthropological trait, we would have never even reached this day. The commander of the Space Shuttle that circled the earth in 2005 remarked that "the center of Africa was burning". She meant the Congo, in which the last great rain forest of the continent is located. Without it there will be no more rain clouds above the sources of the Nile. However, it needs to disappear in order for corporations to gain free access to the Congo’s natural resources that are the reason for the wars that plague the region today. After all, one needs diamonds and coltan for mobile phones. Today, everything on earth is turned into commodities, i.e. everything becomes an object of "trade" and commercialization (which truly means liquidation, the transformation of all into liquid money). In its neoliberal stage it is not enough for capitalism to globally pursue less cost-intensive and preferably "wageless" commodity production. The objective is to transform everyone and everything into commodities, including life itself.~35~ We are racing blindly towards the violent and absolute conclusion of this "mode of production", namely total capitalization/liquidation by "monetarization".~36~ We are not only witnessing perpetual praise of the market – we are witnessing what can be described as "market fundamentalism". People believe in the market as if it was a god. There seems to be a sense that nothing could ever happen without it. Total global maximized accumulation of money/capital as abstract wealth becomes the sole purpose of economic activity. A "free" world market for everything has to be established – a world market that functions according to the interests of the corporations and capitalist money. The installment of such a market proceeds with dazzling speed. It creates new profit possibilities where they have not existed before, e.g. in Iraq, Eastern Europe or China. One thing remains generally overlooked: the abstract wealth created for accumulation implies the destruction of nature as concrete wealth. The result is a "hole in the ground" and next to it a garbage dump with used commodities, outdated machinery and money without value.~37~ However, once all concrete wealth (which today consists mainly of the last natural resources) will be gone, abstract wealth will disappear as well. It will, in Marx’s words, "evaporate". The fact that abstract wealth is not real wealth will become obvious, and so will the answer to the question of which wealth modern economic activity has really created. In the end it is nothing but monetary wealth (and even this mainly exists virtually or on accounts) that constitutes a monoculture controlled by a tiny minority. Diversity is suffocated and millions of people are left wondering how to survive. And really: how do you survive with neither resources nor means of production nor money? The nihilism of our economic system is evident. The whole world will be transformed into money – and then it will disappear. After all, money cannot be eaten. What no one seems to consider is the fact that it is impossible to re-transform commodities, money, capital and machinery into nature or concrete wealth. It seems that underlying all "economic development" is the assumption that "resources", the "sources of wealth",~38~ are renewable and everlasting – just like the "growth" they create.~39~ The notion that capitalism and democracy are one is proven a myth by neoliberalism and its "monetary totalitarianism".~40~ The primacy of politics over economy has been lost. Politicians of all parties have abandoned it. It is the corporations that dictate politics. Where corporate interests are concerned, there is no place for democratic convention or community control. Public space disappears. The res publica turns into a res privata, or – as we could say today – a res privata transnationale (in its original Latin meaning, privare means "to deprive"). Only those in power still have rights. They give themselves the licenses they need, from the "license to plunder" to the "license to kill".~41~ Those who get in their way or challenge their "rights" are vilified, criminalized and to an increasing degree defined as "terrorists" or, in the case of defiant governments, as "rogue states" – a label that usually implies threatened or actual military attack, as we can see in the cases of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Syria and Iran in the near future. U.S. President Bush had even spoken of the possibility of "preemptive" nuclear strikes should the U.S. feel endangered by weapons of mass destruction.~42~ The European Union did not object.~43~ Neoliberalism and war are two sides of the same coin.~44~ Free trade, piracy and war are still "an inseparable three" – today maybe more so than ever. War is not only "good for the economy" but is indeed its driving force and can be understood as the "continuation of economy with other means".~45~ War and economy have become almost indistinguishable.~46~ Wars about resources – especially oil and water – have already begun.~47~ The Gulf Wars are the most obvious examples. Militarism once again appears as the "executor of capital accumulation" – potentially everywhere and enduringly.~48~ Human rights and rights of sovereignty have been transferred from people, communities and governments to corporations.~49~ The notion of the people as a sovereign body has practically been abolished. We have witnessed a coup of sorts. The political systems of the West and the nation state as guarantees for and expression of the international division of labor in the modern world system are increasingly dissolving.~50~ Nation states are developing into "periphery states" according to the inferior role they play in the proto-despotic "New World Order".~51~ Democracy appears outdated. After all, it "hinders business".~52~ The "New World Order" implies a new division of labor that does no longer distinguish between North and South, East and West – today, everywhere is South. An according International Law is established which effectively functions from top to bottom ("top-down") and eliminates all local and regional communal rights. And not only that: many such rights are rendered invalid both retroactively and for the future.~53~ The logic of neoliberalism as a sort of totalitarian neo-mercantilism is that all resources, all markets, all money, all profits, all means of production, all "investment opportunities", all rights and all power belong to the corporations only. To paraphrase Richard Sennett: "Everything to the Corporations!"~54~ One might add: "Now!" The corporations are free to do whatever they please with what they get. Nobody is allowed to interfere. Ironically, we are expected to rely on them to find a way out of the crisis we are in. This puts the entire globe at risk since responsibility is something the corporations do not have or know. The times of social contracts are gone.~55~ In fact, pointing out the crisis alone has become a crime and all critique will soon be defined as "terror" and persecuted as such.~56~ IMF Economic Medicine Since the 1980s, it is mainly the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF that act as the enforcers of neoliberalism. These programs are levied against the countries of the South which can be extorted due to their debts. Meanwhile, numerous military interventions and wars help to take possession of the assets that still remain, secure resources, install neoliberalism as the global economic politics, crush resistance movements (which are cynically labeled as "IMF uprisings"), and facilitate the lucrative business of reconstruction.~57~ In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher introduced neoliberalism in Anglo-America. In 1989, the so-called "Washington Consensus" was formulated. It claimed to lead to global freedom, prosperity and economic growth through "deregulation, liberalization and privatization". This has become the credo and promise of all neoliberals. Today we know that the promise has come true for the corporations only – not for anybody else. In the Middle East, the Western support for Saddam Hussein in the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, and the Gulf War of the early 1990s, announced the permanent U.S. presence in the world’s most contested oil region. In continental Europe, neoliberalism began with the crisis in Yugoslavia caused by the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF. The country was heavily exploited, fell apart and finally beset by a civil war over its last remaining resources.~58~ Since the NATO war in 1999, the Balkans are fragmented, occupied and geopolitically under neoliberal control.~59~ The region is of main strategic interest for future oil and gas transport from the Caucasus to the West (for example the "Nabucco" gas pipeline that is supposed to start operating from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and the Balkans by 2011.~60~ The reconstruction of the Balkans is exclusively in the hands of Western corporations. All governments, whether left, right, liberal or green, accept this. There is no analysis of the connection between the politics of neoliberalism, its history, its background and its effects on Europe and other parts of the world. Likewise, there is no analysis of its connection to the new militarism.
Plan/Solvency
Since, in a just world, outer space would be treated as a global commons, and a global commons model precludes appropriation by private entries, then the appropriation of outer space by private entries is unjust.
Thus, the plan: States ought to adopt a binding international agreement that bans the appropriation of outer space by private entities by establishing outer space as a global commons subject to regulatory delimiting and global liability.
The aff:
solves debris and space colonialism by ensuring the sustainable and equitable use of outer space resources.
prevents circumvention by aligning the interests of state parties is normal means since it models numerous successful agreements governing all other global commons. Vollmer 20 ~Sarah Louise Vollmer (St. Mary's University School of Law), "The Right Stuff in Geospace: Using Mutual Coercion to Avoid an Inevitable Prison for Humanity," 51 ST. MARY'S L.J. 777 (2020). https://commons.stmarytx.edu/thestmaryslawjournal/vol51/iss3/6?utm'source=commons.stmarytx.edu2Fthestmaryslawjournal2Fvol512Fiss32F6andutm'medium=PDFandutm'campaign=PDFCoverPages ~CT IV. NECESSITY FOR REGULATION TO PRESERVE THE HERITAGE OF MANKIND—A PROPOSAL Conceptually, all persons hold an implied property right in the space commons.111 As such, spacefaring entities and developing nations possess an equitable right to access and use orbital resources.112 But the sui generis nature of geospace presents a paradox requiring a unique regime for the sustainable usage of its resources.113 The international community cannot realize the advantages of the common heritage principle under a property regime because any conceivable assignment would violate the non-appropriation clause or unjustly enrich a particular interest.114 This means that only regulatory solutions can protect the interests inherent in a commons protected for the common heritage of mankind. A. The Motivations for International Compliance The crux of a workable treaty lies in the consent of the parties to the agreement.115 Thereafter, signatories internalize the agreement’s object and purpose into their domestic law, or in the case of international organizations, into an institutional framework.116 To implement a binding international instrument, we must therefore ask the question: Why do nations follow international law,117 and how can we use those behavioral realities to construct a workable framework to ensure geospace survives?118 At the dawn of civilized society, depending on a particular jurisdiction’s values, the laws of nature and morality compelled obedience and social order.119 When nation-states concluded international agreements, it represented the coalescence of the various values-based systems, the overlap of which formed a universal understanding of the law of mankind.120 "~The~ fundamental conceptual boundary between municipal and international law . . . view~s~ international law largely in terms of contractual relations, therefore assigning to the ‘sovereign’ a central place in the construction of the two orders."121 In other words, transnational cooperation operated through balancing the competing autonomy and values of the parties involved. Despite centuries of debate, values systems remain the principal motivating factor of compliance with international law.122 Effective regulatory regimes must, therefore, strike at the heart of what nation-states value the most, which is often related to national security.123 When entering an international agreement, whether or not a nation-state will ratify it informs us of the value a nation-state places on the instrument’s subject matter. That value equates to the utility a nation-state places on certain allowances or prohibitions.124 Incorporating these motivating factors with Hardin’s regulatory solution, any freedoms infringed upon must manifest a higher utility than currently realized. If COPUOS proposes a protocol for sustainable uses of space, the provisions must either have a negligible effect on the global community’s perceived utility of space access or substantially increase that utility. Assuming the propositioned regulatory scheme aligns with the values system of each nation-state, the probability of internalizing such regulations through domestic codification is high. To ascertain the interests of nation-states, we must look to the factors motivating current space utilization. Routine access to space undeniably aids our technological advancement. The ISS’s antigravity environment provides unique conditions to study medicine.125 Satellites provide real-time tracking of environmental conditions and transmit crucial information for disaster recovery planning.126 Space telescopes track objects with the potential to cause the extinction of life of Earth.127 Free from the veil of our hazy atmosphere, satellites can produce better imagery and ascertain the composition of potential resource deposits on celestial bodies.128 And simply receiving satellite imagery of our planet forces us to confront the realities of our fragile existence. These benefits signify the tangible realization of the OST’s object and purpose, which flow to all members of the global community.129 If we do not begin active decontamination and mitigation of space debris, the utility of geospace will cease to exist. Imagining our existence without these advances is a potent method to stress the criticality of unabated pollution in geospace. B. Existing Proposals Legal scholars have formulated several frameworks to mitigate space debris. Some recommend implementing a market-share liability regime, which assigns liability according to the volume of each nation-states’ exploits.130 Opponents of this construction rightfully highlight the inequities inherent in such a scheme. Considering the United States, Russia, and China make up the bulk of spacefaring activity, market-share liability would unduly burden these nations, and coerce a categorical exit from the space industry or a repeat of the Moon Treaty.131 Another scholar advocates for an environmental law approach, asserting that the space commons would benefit from a protocol closely mirroring the Madrid Protocol.132 While prospective applications of such a model could prevent additional accumulations, it would not feasibly abate the current collection of debris.133 The strengths of Mary Button’s mitigation proposal lie in the binding nature of the Madrid Protocol and compulsory environmental impact requirements. And though it advocates for a more collaborative conference mechanism, rather than the strict unanimous consent required of UNCOPUOS’s resolutions, it still shies away from compulsory requirements for active debris removal. Along with the Antarctic Treaty (ATS), the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) also served as a model for the Corpus Juris Spatialis. But oddly, the law of salvage was omitted from the treaties. Unlike abandoned objects at sea, once a nation-state places an object into space, ownership exists in perpetuity. Sandra Drago addressed removing the OST’s property-in-perpetuity mechanism134 so as to permit the active salvage of inoperable satellites.135 Drago’s proposal is vital to any mitigation framework. But while this removes a substantial bar currently restricting debris removal, it does not address free-riding, and spacefaring enterprises are free to choose more lucrative space activities other than salvage operations.136 C. A Coercive Proposal Mutual coercion lies at the core of Hardin’s solution.137 To summarize, law-abiding citizens make concessions to regulatory social constructs in the interest of conserving some utility otherwise lost.138 The coercive element lies in relinquishing one’s ability to exploit some freedom, the detriment of which cannot be realized at that moment in time.139 Conceding to a regime that tempers free exploitation of the commons allows everyone to benefit from the positive externalities of individual usage. Equated to space, nation-states currently concede to non-appropriation in the interest of maintaining equitable access. But because of the sui generis nature of geospace, even non-participants receive a benefit from the use of the commons. In effect, beneficiaries are free-riding from the capital investment of spacefaring nations and entities. This informs the structure of the ensuing two-part framework: geospace delimitation and global liability
Geospace Delimitation The history of regulatory delimitation illustrates its effectiveness at balancing the rights of individuals, sovereigns, and mankind. Each instance explained in Part II infra, arose out of public necessity to ensure and protect the maximum utility of the global commons, without the deleteriousness of inhabitability, sovereign interference, or over-exploitation.140 The regimes governing Antarctica, the High Seas, the Atmosphere, and the radio-frequency spectrum evidence that mutually coercive delimitation can honor the common heritage of mankind, without encroaching on the peaceful enjoyment and benefits attributable to these areas. a. Antarctica In the 1950s, there was concern that Antarctica would succumb to Cold War hysteria, becoming a target for international discord and nuclear arms testing.141 In a move to reestablish global scientific exchange, the international scientific community hosted the International Geophysical Year project, and after identifying the potential of Antarctica, sought to protect it from any ruinous power posturing.142 This necessity for regulating permissible activity resulted in the formation of the ATS.143 Subsequent technological advancement revealed mineral deposits, triggering commercial interest in exploiting its natural resources. The threat catalyzed the promulgation of the Madrid Protocol.144 Again, these delimitations did not sever humanity’s utility in Antarctica. Rather, mankind conceded to the prohibition of deleterious usage in the interest of preserving its scientific utility.145 b. The High Seas Similar to Antarctica, the High Seas faced threats in the 1960s when nation-states began unilaterally and arbitrarily, extending resource recovery activities further into the depths of international waters.146 In the interest of equity, particularly the interests of landlocked nations, UNCLOS delimited sovereign access to the seas, allowing usage only within the established exclusive economic zones (EEZs).147 An annex to UNCLOS provided a procedural framework in which resource recovery enterprises could operate in international common areas beyond the EEZs, precluding the unilateral capture of global resources by one nation.148 Once more, a mutually coercive framework removed certain freedoms in the interest of mankind without unjustly limiting equitable access to resources. c. The Atmosphere Divergent from the problems of the ice and sea, atmospheric regulation resolved an issue more analogous to geospace debris proliferation. Atmospheric utility is quite simple: breathable air and protection from deadly cosmic radiation. When satellite imagery revealed the sizable hole in the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention placed an outright ban on ozone-depleting chemicals in everyday consumables.149 This prohibition directly addressed the source of the negative externality, forcing humanity to internalize the externality through alternate investment in refrigerants. Recent evidence of the reduction of ozone loss validates the mutually coercive delimitation within the Montreal Protocol.150 d. Regulating the Telecommunication Spectrum The business model and financial strategy of telecommunications entities influence satellite deployment planning. Typically, orbital placement aims to "maximize ~a~ potential user base," and if that base happens to encompass, for instance, the continental United States, market competition drastically narrows the availability of slots for satellite positioning.151 Realizing that satellite acquisition becomes moot without conscientious "use of telemetry and control . . . required for spaceflight,"152 the Space Radiocommunication Conference convened to revise the Radio Regulations in 1963,153 granting the ITU authority to allocate radio frequencies among spacefaring entities.154 Originally, the ITU: ~A~llocated orbits and frequencies solely through a first-in-time system. This led to concern that developed countries would secure all of the available slots before developing countries had the technological capacity to use them. Although some orbits and frequencies are still allocated on a first-in-time basis, each state is now guaranteed a certain number of future orbits and frequencies, regardless of its current technological capacity.155 The FCC regulates the segment of the electromagnetic spectrum allocated to the United States.156 Arguably, the ITU and agencies like the FCC engage in de facto appropriation of the more highly sought-after orbits.157 Yet to an extent, the ITU’s delimiting of the radio-frequency spectrum remedied the negative externalities of non-appropriation in geospace, such as the overcrowding of active satellites and the resultant interference. Where the ITU’s scheme does not remedy the byproduct of geospace resource use, it succeeds in ensuring communication capabilities remain free from inequitable use.158 e. The OST’s Ineffective Delimitations The recurrent theme among the aforementioned regulatory schemes is the preservation of utility within the commons concerned.159 The frameworks each provide a means to enjoy shared resources while removing the potential for destruction. The OST’s nonproliferation provisions properly regulate the usage of the space commons to further the enjoyment of space’s true utility: scientific discovery and telecommunications. Likewise, the Liability Convention reinforces the necessity to maintain heightened situational awareness to guarantee the mutual, uninterrupted enjoyment of activity in space.160 But nation-states exploit the loop-holes within these documents to avoid internalizing some of their externalities. Specifically, the Liability Convention only assigns liability for damage caused to space objects when fault can actually be determined.161 Though it would be simple to assign fault to a collision caused by an intact and inoperative satellite, it is virtually impossible to identify the owner of smaller pieces of debris. Further, while the ITU reserves slots for nations not represented in space,162 it does nothing to stop those capable of reaching geospace from littering the commons and destroying the utility of reserved slots.163 Holistically, none of the delimitations in the Corpus Juris Spatialis negate the cause of the growing belt of debris in geospace. As a sui generis resource, the mere occupation of LEO or GSO equates to the reduction of the overall utility of geospace. When an entity launches a rocket into space, the accompanying payload causes either (1) temporary reduction of the aggregate utility of geospace or (2) permanent reduction of the aggregate utility of geospace.164 The first delimitation prong will recommend bifurcating the applicability of the Corpus Juris Spatialis, with separate regimes for outer space and geospace. While the commercialization of outer space is not overly injurious to the international commons or interests of developing nations, the overcrowding of affluent spacefaring entities vying for orbital acquisition puts immense pressure on the finite resources within geospace. Therefore, demarcating the upper limit of geospace will allow entities to continue exploring the universe without imposing the restrictions placed on those seeking geospace positioning.165 This modification will allow continued use of both regions, but coerce more sustainable usage of geospace with the assistance of the secondary prong below. 2. Global Liability Operating under the theory that humanity holds an implied property right in the global commons but limited under the non-appropriation clause to protect those interests through traditional property mechanisms, the logical alternative is to impose liability on actions violative of the global interest.166 Further, assuming humanity collectively benefits from utilization of this commons, then humanity likewise must internalize the cost of the negative externalities imposed.167 This means that spacefarers, as members of the global collective, hold both the right and obligation to protect that right for others.168 Therefore, anyone utilizing or benefitting from the utilization of the geospace commons has an equitable duty to ensure its sustainability. Under traditional tort theories, when one has a duty, breach of that duty causally linked to a measurable injury is actionable. In terms of the duty to humanity when utilizing geospace, the culmination of Kessler Syndrome represents the measurable injury. Kessler informed the scientific community in 1970 of the probable cataclysmic chain-reaction and destructive conclusion of unabated geospace debris pollution.169 This theory, reiterated consistently since its dissemination, materialized in 2009.170 Fundamentally, every spacefaring entity and approving launching state knows of this monumental threat to the utility of geospace. Yet to date, mitigation guidelines remain non-binding, and four-figure satellite constellations continue to receive approval.171 To incorporate a time-honored risk calculation method, the Hand Formula is instructive and evidences a trend toward unapologetic endangerment to the utility of geospace in isolation of the associated tort regime. Let us assume the burden to mitigate space debris is $18.5 million172 but the probable magnitude of not mitigating the accumulation of space debris equates to reverting our technological capabilities back to the 1800s. Considering the accumulation of debris from the accidental or intentional breakup of geospace satellites, the probability of Kessler Syndrome fully concluding in the absence of a comprehensive mitigation protocol is one hundred percent.173 While difficult to quantify, the value of our scientific progress attributable to the advent of space travel far outstrips the burden to mitigate space debris. Should Kessler Syndrome become our reality, the measurable injury is the cost of reestablishing global communications without the usage of satellite relays. To add insult to injury, the invaluable utility of geospace will cease to exist. A viable alternative would institute a regime of shared global liability which makes consideration of capital investors as well as nonparticipating beneficiaries in the interest of equity. That is, should the inevitable prison for humanity become a reality, the entire global community will be liable to pay an equitable share of the overall cost of recovery efforts.174 The Liability Convention should undergo a similar trifurcation, adding this new scheme to the current strict and absolute liability mechanisms.175 As such, shared global liability will consider the responsibility of nation-states and private entities in isolation.176 This will coerce cooperation among all agencies, nations, and private entities because the equitable share of responsibility will drive collective resolution. V. CONCLUSION In light of the emerging global sentiments regarding environmental conservation and sustainability, instituting a regime that clearly defines a legal consequence in the event of environmental ruin boasts greater coercive force than non-binding resolutions. 9 This international agreement aligns with the universal value that the international community places on the utility of geospace.177 In essence, it protects geospace by forcing the signatory to face the reality of their negative externalities. It is unlikely that a nation-state exists that does not value space exploration and the benefits attributable. In April of 2019, in the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), COPUOS adopted an agenda that focused on the long-term sustainability of the space commons, space traffic management, equitable uses of GSO, and the mitigation of space debris.178 Mindful of space’s critical role in attaining many of the SDGs, the Committee put forth guidelines to facilitate capacity building without prejudice to any one nation-states’ economic capabilities. To be sure, the Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities are an important step forward, but many delegates reiterated the importance of developing binding instruments, particularly in light of developments in "space resource exploitation, large constellations, and space debris remediation."179 Looking forward, research continues to advance the availability of debris mitigation mechanisms, such as the European Space Agency’s newly-commissioned ClearSpace-1 satellite.180 Mission objectives increasingly include end-of-life procedures to place satellites in appropriate orbits to decrease clutter in areas where active satellites operate.181 In the context of private entities, Planetary Resources—originally positioned to become a principle player in the space mining industry—merged with Consensys Space and quickly launched TruSat, a crowd-sourced situational awareness forum that compiles the reports of private citizens to track objects in geospace.182 These developments instill confidence in the international community’s sentiments toward ameliorating this ever-approaching catastrophe. It is with great hope that this trend continues, and COPUOS promulgates binding regulations to ensure the sustainability of geospace for the common heritage of mankind. "But we can never do nothing. That which we have done for thousands of years is also action. It also produces evils."183
Treating space as a commons solves orbital debris. Current non-binding agreements are not enough.
Silverstein and Panda ‘3/9 - Benjamin Silverstein ~research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MA, International Relations, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs BA, International Affairs, George Washington University~ and Ankit Panda ~Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AB, Princeton University~, "Space Is a Great Commons. It’s Time to Treat It as Such." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Web). March 9, 2021. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/09/space-is-great-commons.-it-s-time-to-treat-it-as-such-pub-84018 AT The failure to manage Earth orbits as a commons undermines safety and predictability, exposing space operators to growing risks such as collisions with other satellites and debris. The long-standing debris problem has been building for decades and demands an international solution.¶ Competing states need to coalesce behind a commons-based understanding of Earth orbits to set the table for a governance system to organize space traffic and address rampant debris. New leadership in the United States can spur progress on space governance by affirming that Earth orbits are a great commons. So far, President Joe Biden and his administration have focused on major space projects, but a relatively simple policy declaration that frames Earth orbits as a great commons can support efforts to negotiate space governance models for issues like debris mitigation and remediation. The Biden administration can set the stage to pursue broad space policy goals by establishing a consensus among states, particularly those with the most invested in Earth orbits, that space is a great commons.¶ THE PRESSING NEED FOR SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ The Earth orbits that provide the majority of benefits to states and commercial ventures represent only a tiny fraction of outer space as a whole. Competition for the limited volume of these Earth orbits is especially fierce since two satellites cannot be in the same place at the same time and not all orbits are equally useful for all missions. The number of objects residing in Earth orbits is now at an all-time high, with most new objects introduced into orbits at altitudes of between 400 and 700 kilometers above sea level. Millions of pieces of debris in Earth orbits pose a threat to continuing space operations. For instance, the final U.S. space shuttle missions faced 1-in-300 odds of losing a space vehicle or crew member to orbital debris or micrometeoroid impacts.¶ Collisions with fragments of orbital litter as small as a few millimeters across can ruin satellites and end missions. Current technologies cannot track all of these tiny pieces of debris, leaving space assets at the mercy of undetectable, untraceable, and unpredictable pieces of space junk. Some researchers have determined that the debris population in low Earth orbit is already self-sustaining, meaning that collisions between space objects will produce debris more rapidly than natural forces, like atmospheric drag, can remove it from orbit.¶ States—namely the United States, Russia, China, and India—have exacerbated this debris accumulation trend by testing kinetic anti-satellite capabilities or otherwise purposefully fragmenting their satellites in orbit. These states, along with the rest of the multilateral disarmament community, are currently at an impasse on establishing future space governance mechanisms that can address the debris issue. A portion of this impasse may be attributable to disparate views of the nature of outer space in the international context. Establishing a clear view among negotiating parties that Earth orbits should be treated as a great commons would establish a basis for future agreements that reduce debris-related risks.¶ Beyond debris-generating, kinetic anti-satellite weapons tests, revolutionary operating concepts challenge existing space traffic management practices. For instance, commercial ventures are planning networks of thousands of satellites to provide low-latency connectivity on Earth and deploying them by the dozens. States are following this trend. Some are considering transitioning away from using single (or few) exquisite assets in higher orbits and toward using many satellites in low Earth orbits. These new operational concepts could lead to an increase in collision risks.¶ Without new governance agreements, problems related to debris, heavy orbital traffic, and harmful interference will only intensify. Debris in higher orbits can persist for a century or more. The costs of adapting to increasingly polluted orbits would be immense, and the opportunity costs would be even higher. For instance, all else being equal, hardening satellites against collisions increases their mass and volume, in turn raising launch costs per satellite. These costs, rooted in a failure to govern space as a commons, will be borne by all space actors, including emerging states and commercial entities.¶ EXISTING FORMS OF SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ A well-designed governance system, founded on a widespread understanding of Earth orbits as a great commons, could temper these risks. Currently, space is not wholly unregulated, but existing regulations are limited both in scope and implementation. Many operators pledge to follow national regulations and international guidelines, but decentralized accountability mechanisms limit enforcement. These guidelines also do not cover the full range of potentially risky behaviors in space. For example, while some space operators can maneuver satellites to avoid collisions, there are no compulsory rules or standards on who has the right of way.¶ At the interstate level, seminal multilateral agreements provide some more narrow guidance on what is and is not acceptable in space. Most famously, the Outer Space Treaty affirms that outer space "shall be free for exploration and use by all states without discrimination of any kind" and that "there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies." Similar concepts of Earth orbits being a great commons arise in subsequent international texts. Agreements like the Liability Convention impose fault-based liability for debris-related collisions in space, but it is difficult to prove fault in this regime in part because satellite owners and operators have yet to codify a standard of care in space, and thus the regime does not clearly disincentivize debris creation in orbit. Other rules of behavior in Earth orbits have been more successful in reducing harmful interference between satellite operations, but even these efforts are limited in scope.¶ States have acceded to supranational regulations of the most limited (and thus most valuable) Earth orbits. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) coordinates, but does not authorize, satellite deployments and operations in geosynchronous orbits and manages radiofrequency spectrum assignments in other regions of space to reduce interference between satellites. These coordination activities are underpinned by the ITU’s constitution, which reminds states "that radio frequencies and any associate orbits . . . are limited natural resources," indicating a commons-based approach to governing the radiofrequency spectrum. However, the union’s processes are still adapting to new operational realities in low Earth orbit, and these rules were never designed to address issues like debris.
Current law governing space bans state appropriation, BUT ALLOWS private appropriation. A true global commons regime would require a form of democratic governance that ensures the equitable use of space resources and overcomes the expansion of neoliberal capitalism into outer space.
Dardot 18 ~Pierre Dardot, "What democracy for the global commons?," The Commons and a New Global Governance, ed. Samuel Cogolati and Jan Wouters (2018). https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/58613276/What'Democracy'-'Dardot'Leuwen'2018.pdf?1552469271=andresponse-content-disposition=inline3B+filename3DWhat'democracy'for'the'global'commons.pdfandExpires=1642726034andSignature=YJi8AG6~~Y—-mP0qsop4i3t~Z5bVLtQYwuDtUdXm6sdKaYwCJFFzQOL-OiY9nIH~JZsophnChwMlUMSGOCDVh7NhHmUonD28k9fU9PrfN2nYTNV2x8XnvoK2KtelSRvRyWN78eA7uC1isTAf1pO5~abPS9XQnORhjp9nPXjpIuBqLrrJhIUCKNjEorJ0u1h63DxkORBKVZfFh-TawG~PS~WdamGNqfljxjaP1G5bG-hUh1aNw0CuXhnqdd8yeH0-uT7iXVNu8cDl2zOtobIiAmD0SBKxjUXP8SYLkvNO0BETnpIzetK7gW8yksHtYjt-WasarhkMQpHeNwvJOY8QeA''andKey-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA~ CT Using ‘commons’ as a noun, thus, implies a methodological break with this reification of common things, as well as with the logic underlying the classification of goods in economic theory. A ‘commons’ is first and foremost an institutional affair and, more specifically, an institutional space defined by collectively developed practical rules. What is most important is the dimension of instituting the activity, and not the technical characteristics of things and goods. Here lies the essential difference between common goods and the common(s). We must specify, therefore, that any commons, insofar as it is instituted as such, is a good in an ethical and political sense. By contrast, any good that is capable of being purchased and sold, is not in itself a commons. This means that a commons is a good only under the condition that it is not a possession or an acquisition. In other words, once it is instituted, a commons is inalienable and inappropriable. It creates a space within which use prevails over ownership. It is, thus, not a resource in itself – even when it is related to one. In this way we understand a commons to be the active link between an object, a place, a natural resource (for example, a waterfall or a forest), or something artificial (for example, a theatre or a square) and the collective activity of those who take charge of it, preserve it, maintain it and take care of it. This activity is not external to the commons, but instead inherent in it. If we take this to be the definition of every common, then a third implication is that a common, regardless of its specific designation, requires self-government or democratic government. The very act of establishing a common is in and of itself a democratic act. The act of governing a common is nothing more than the continuation of the democratic act; it is thus a sort of continuation of the institution. It consists of reviving this institution by critically assessing its collective rules, whenever the situation demands it. As such, the governance of the common can only proceed from the principle of democracy – the non-democratic governance of a common would threaten, in the short-term, the very existence of this common. I call this the principle of the common, this time in the singular form. For that purpose, I refer to the Latin etymology of this word: the common, or ‘cum-munus’, is the co-obligation that results from co-participation in the same activity. This co-obligation cannot proceed from the simple fact of belonging. Democracy is, in essence, co-participation in public affairs. The Occupy movement (for example, the anti-austerity movement in Spain, also referred to as the 15-M Movement or the Indignados, or the wave of protests in 2013 to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Gezi Park) brought with it a strong anti-oligarchic critique of contemporary political representation, advocating for ‘real democracy’. Most notable is that this democratic requirement is strongly tied to ecological claims based on preserving the ‘commons’ (urban spaces in particular) against any sort of private or state enclosure. It then becomes evident that the commons (in the plural) cannot but be established or governed but by the implementation of the principle of the common (in the singular), which is to say, democracy. To sum up, common use requires self-government. Yet these examples would seem to speak in favour of the establishment of a local democracy, confined within specific geographic limits (for example, a neighbourhood or a city). Aristotle argued for a similar sort of constraint, pointing that beyond a certain number, citizens could no longer know each other. This capacity to mutually engage with one another was, according to him, an important condition for the exercise of democracy. Thus emerges a challenge I will here try to tackle: what sort of democracy is required for commons which are not local, but global in nature – global commons? My thesis is that this democracy can only be global. It remains to be seen what this sort of global democracy should look like. CURRENT PARADIGMS TO DEAL WITH THE UNLIMITED COSMOCAPITALISM With neoliberal capitalism we have come to know a singular historical phenomenon, which I will refer to as ‘cosmocapitalism’. How can this be understood? Cosmocapitalism is not merely a geographical or spatial extension of capitalism, since this extension appeared along with the birth of capitalism. It represents capitalism’s tendency to become universal. By this, I mean that capital tends to submit all aspects of human existence, even those most intimate and subjective, along with the natural world, to the market’s logic, which is nothing more than the logic of competition. The terms ‘world’ and ‘cosmos’ do not describe the planet in a physical sense, or even the global population, but rather the political framework, with its institutional and normative qualities whereby the expansion of the market’s logic becomes possible. Max Weber already described the idea of an immense cosmos which imposes its economic activity on the individual caught within the market’s grasp (Weber, 2002). Today, this cosmos has grown beyond the single economic sphere to include the social sphere. 3.1 Humanity’s Common Heritage Paradigm and the Appropriation of Space A first example will allow us to highlight this logic of limitlessness by examining the delegation of tasks between the state and private enterprises. On 25 November 2015, just a few days before the opening of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris, Barack Obama passed law H.R.2262, which provided authorization for private American companies to use natural resources from outer space (US Congress, 2015). As we know, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty established the legal status of outer space in the following manner (United Nations, 1967). Article 1 acknowledged that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, implying free and equal access without discrimination of any kind. Article 2 established that ‘Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means’. These two conditions, equal access for all and non-ownership, are strictly complementary and both refer to subjects recognized by international law, that is to say, the states: ‘national appropriation’ is state ownership and non-appropriation refers to non-appropriation by states only. It is precisely from this ambiguity that the law (US Congress, 2015) was cleverly enacted on 25 November 2015. Its name is already quite self-evident: US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. In a nutshell, the Act gives any United States (US) citizen involved in commercial exploration and exploitation of an asteroid or space resource, the right to own, possess, transport, use, and sell this resource provided it is in accordance with the applicable legislation. This amounts to giving American companies a property right over space resources in due form (Calimaq, 2015). Yet, the law passed by Congress seems to pretend the contrary, as it provides a so-called ‘Disclaimer of Extraterritorial Sovereignty’ in Section 3 of the Act (US Congress, 2015) By the enactment of this Act, the United States– Exercises its jurisdiction over United States citizens and vessels, and foreign persons and vessels otherwise subject to its jurisdiction, in the exercise of the high seas freedom to engage in exploration for, and commercial recovery of, hard mineral resources of the deep seabed in accordance with generally accepted principles of international law recognized by the United States; but Does not thereby assert sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any areas or resources in the deep seabed. We can clearly see how this law circumvents the prohibition of national appropriation articulated by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty: the prohibition forbids states themselves from ‘national appropriation by claim of sovereignty’, but it does not prevent a private company from exploring or exploiting space resources for commercial purposes. It goes without saying that the enactment of this law was very much applauded by private companies planning to embark on asteroid mining. What is remarkable about this law is that it confirms the international commitment of the US not to assert sovereignty over any space resource, while simultaneously conferring private companies the right to appropriate resources therein without any restriction. Under the Outer Space Treaty, the legal status of the ‘common things’ (res communes), under which certain resources are known to be common by nature (as in Roman law), is not formally addressed. Under Article I of the Outer Space Treaty, the outer space is not even declared to be the ‘common heritage of mankind’, but simply the ‘province of all mankind’ (United Nations, 1967). The notion of ‘common heritage’ was only explicitly introduced in 1967 to deal with the legal status of the deep seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (United Nations General Assembly, 1967). Regardless of the ambiguity of this notion, particularly regarding the holder of such heritage, the idea of ‘heritage’ implies a double duty to both preserve and transmit it. However, international law limits the right of use for states only, as they alone are faced with the prohibition of appropriation. We are, therefore, presented with a way of extrapolating the res communes category inherited from Roman law, insofar as non-appropriation and common use are present, but subordinate to the goodwill of the states. Thus, we are faced with a cheap if not unfinished version of a ‘common’, which is entrusted to states, and limits state sovereignty without even calling it into question. With the Competitiveness Act (US Congress, 2015), we are faced with an act of state sovereignty that manages to circumvent the prohibition of appropriation by a sovereign state without formally violating it. This represents a sort of ‘delegation’ under which the state, on the one hand, grants its citizens a legal title that it denies to itself, on the other, it does so in order to better guarantee it to those to whom it has been delegated. The imperium (state sovereignty) gives full licence for all candidates to the dominium, to privately control and appropriate any resources they are able to seize: statutory law enforces beforehand the power that technology provides. Beyond this collusion between the state and private companies, what emerges here is the powerful homology between state and private ownership: imperium and dominium appear to be based on two forms of a similar logic of ownership, which affirm one another. The primary challenge facing the heritage of mankind paradigm is that it does not fundamentally break with interstate logic and, as such, leaves leeway for private appropriation. 3.2 The Global Public Goods Paradigm and the Value of Biodiversity A second example allows us to unveil the same neoliberal capitalist logic at work within the realm of the destruction of the biosphere. At the end of the 1980s, with the momentum of the pollution rights initiated by Reagan, George H. W. Bush encouraged the expansion of the market endorsing the ‘No Net Loss’ goal (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: p. 45). The seemingly small adjective ‘net’ carries with it a heavy connotation. It does not mean that we do not have the right to destroy biodiversity but rather, the opposite. Indeed, under the ‘No Net Loss’ principle, we have the right to destroy biodiversity as long as we replace whatever has been destroyed elsewhere. In other words, damages resulting from human activities must be balanced by at least equivalent gains. For example, we have the right to destroy ten acres of forest in one area, as long as we plant ten acres of trees elsewhere, within the next 30 years, because once the new trees have grown, it will not make any difference. In market lingo, this is referred to as ‘biodiversity offsetting’. The neoliberal argument is the same and is now well-established – we have failed to obtain our reduction goals, so we must adapt our strategy by trying new financial mechanisms, which are much more effective than the inefficient laws and regulations. That these so-called ‘laws and regulations’ have failed because they have bet on the market must be hidden. It is always the same explanation – if we failed, it is not because we conceded to the market, but rather the opposite, because we did not sufficiently take advantage of it. What is the relationship between this logic of compensation and actual biodiversity, which is made up of the interaction between complex systems, and not of detachable and interchangeable parts? A good example comes from the Brazilian company Vale, which sought to present eucalyptus plantations as a form of reforestation of the Amazon rainforest whose destruction it has actively contributed to. The logic of this compensation can be understood as equivalency logic in its most literal sense. That is, it assumes that there is a commensurability between the Amazon rainforest and eucalyptus plantations, which would affirm their equal value. This type of reasoning is completely indifferent to the sort of relationship a tree has with the soil: the fact that the eucalyptus, which originated from Australia, actually dries up the Amazonian soil, is not at all taken into consideration (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: pp. 94–5). As Marx so aptly described it in the first Volume of his major book Capital (1992), the logic behind market equivalency is at its core a logic of indifference to the qualitative differences that exist between different types of work, and the products that stem from each. What is remarkable here is that we are not referring to the products of human work but instead to living ecosystems. Here we have come to a critical point: the marketing of biodiversity requires that we assign value to something that is not, in fact, a product of work. This argument was reaffirmed by Pavel Sukhdev, a banker who has directed the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 2007: ‘We take advantage of nature because it has value. But we lose it because it is free’ (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: p. 62). Thus, ‘~t~he economy has become the currency of politics’ (sic), we have to learn to understand ‘~t~he economic value of nature’ and express it in a way that is clear to political decision makers. In essence, we must remedy the ‘~i~nvisible economics of nature’ by assigning to it a monetary value or a price. In order to carry out this task we must employ a calculation: in this way, the pollination of trees and flowers by bees constitutes an economically invisible service whose value is estimated at 200 billion dollars, which is almost 8 per cent of the global agricultural production on earth according to Pavel Sukhdev (ibid.: p. 9). The same principle can be applied to pure air or drinking water – the services they render become more and more valuable as they become increasingly rare. Scarcity has always determined value, except that now scarcity represents the services provided by nature. But what exactly does the notion of an economically assessable ‘service’ mean? What vision of nature does it propose and is this conceptualization really new? For a long time, biodiversity was conceived of as a group of resources comprised of several distinct elements (genes, species, habitats and so on), which were capable of being owned, purchased and sold. This conception prevailed in Rio during the Convention on Biological Diversity (United Nations, 1992). But, at the end of the twentieth century, a more dynamic representation emerged which posited that ecosystems should be recognized as the ‘third level of biodiversity’, situated above genes and species (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: pp. 164–166). Now processes and flows take precedence over individual entities and elements. Although we can measure the intrinsic value of the latter, we can only appreciate the value of process and flow in terms of ‘services’. It is, thus, not biodiversity in and of itself which is valuable, but more so the services rendered by the ecosystems that possess value. Hence the notion of ‘ecosystem services’, consisting of streams of natural capital stock which, when combined with human industrial activities, gives way to human welfare (ibid.: pp. 59 and 165). ‘Provisioning services’ (related to ‘resources’: food, wood, grains and so on), ‘regulating services’ (the climate, rainfall, water quality), and ‘cultural services’ (spiritual or recreational value of nature) can be counted among such services. Biobanks sell shares to protect species threatened by deforestation to the very companies who carry out such acts (ibid.: p. 154). Many are unwavering in their belief that the biosphere as a whole should be treated as natural capital. In keeping with this line of thought, the following shift occurs: the biosphere should not enter the commercial sphere merely as a commodity (the logic underlying the sale of timber and industrial capitalism, marketing ‘biological resources’ and patented genes, and so on), but also and most importantly as an asset (that is, within the context of securities eligible for future revenue based on the logic of annuities) (ibid.: p. 166). Thus, we move from the simple commodification of nature, typical of industrial capitalism, which emphasizes producing goods, to neoliberal capitalist financialization and, simultaneously, from the portrayal of nature as a ‘resource’ to its representation as capital generating a ‘flow of services’. How does the theory of GPGs (Kaul et al., 1999) allow us to fight against this trend to financialization? Is GPGs theory not designed, on the contrary, to promote governance of private and state actors? As we know, beyond the criteria relative to the beneficiaries of such goods (the publicum which turns these goods into global goods), this theory distinguishes between three classes of GPGs: global natural goods (for example, ozone layer, climate stability); (ii) goods that constitute man-made heritage (for example, knowledge, cultural heritage, the Internet); and (iii) goods that result from global politics (for example, peace, health, financial stability). While the first class represents natural goods, the other two result from human activity. However, the distinction between these three distinct classes becomes blurred in the case of the negative consequences flowing from poorly managed non-renewable energy. As a result of global policies, global natural goods slide into the third category of GPGs. Moreover, an economistic approach in terms of supply requires that these natural goods are reduced to ‘stock variables’ like the goods of the second category, whereas the goods of the third category are conceived as ‘flow variables’ since a continued effort is required to ensure their potential. But if natural assets are now part of the third category, should we conclude that they have become ‘flow variables’? In any case, the evolution from ‘stock’ to ‘flow’ corresponds precisely with the sort of change that accompanies and legitimizes nature’s financialization. Finally, and most worryingly, the value attributed to biological diversity is estimated by reference to the costs of protecting it. Thus, biological diversity enters the category of public goods that have an ‘intrinsic existence value’ ‘in an effort to grapple with and ultimately define the intrinsic worth of protecting the ~good~’ (ibid.: p. 253). We would be better off articulating that this is not intrinsic at all: biodiversity has no value of its own and is not a good in and of itself; instead, its value is derived from the fact that it is the result of subjective appreciation, which amounts to recognizing that this is a good. We see what can result from the ambiguity surrounding the term ‘good’. But overall this confirms the rejection of the notion of biodiversity’s intrinsic value in favour of the idea that value is assigned by an external party, which expresses in its own way the notion of ‘ecosystem services’. 4. COSMODEMOCRACY Given the logic underlying cosmocapitalism, we must find out a new type of global democracy if we wish to have any chance of halting and reversing it. Such a democracy will be referred to below as cosmodemocracy. It is indeed linked to cosmopolitanism; that is, to the idea of global politics and global citizenship. 4.1 Different Types of Cosmopolitanism 4.1.1 Cosmopolitanism as a project Cosmopolitanism can be defined as the feeling and consciousness of belonging to the same world. It can be expressed in many different ways. It can represent the awareness of living in the same world or sharing the same human condition, the feeling of sharing a common, confined space, and the feeling of being affected by everything that affects another part of humanity. According to Kant’s well-known dictum, ‘a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world’ (Kant, 1977). The awareness of belonging to a shared world has been expressed in noteworthy works of philosophy. This is particularly true of stoicism, within which man is seen as belonging to part of a ‘Universal’ or ‘Upper City’ and whose political city is just a small image. Individuals are then viewed as a citizens of the world, but this citizenship is not at all political. By virtue of its universalism, Christianity was able to modify and extend its tradition through the ‘catholicity’ of the Church. The idea that human rights are not limited to any specific country, but are universal in nature, arose from Christian universalism and found support from various scholars and lawyers, including Anacharsis Cloots, author of Bases constitutionnelles de la République du genre humain (1793). Yet the framework remains one in which the world is assimilated to the nation: the human race becomes the only ruler so that the Universal Republic must identify with the Republic of Mankind and there is only one nation that corresponds with humanity itself. With Kant’s Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay (1795), cosmopolitanism begins to take a new meaning. Kant distinguishes between three overlapping components of public law: municipal or civil law (ius civitatis), which should be a republican constitution; (ii) international law or the law of nations (ius gentium), which provides for the right of states to engage in mutual relations or international law via a federation of free states; and (iii) cosmopolitan law (ius cosmopoliticum). However, cosmopolitan law is intended to guarantee the right of ‘hospitality’ to all individuals – which is a right of access merely to promote trade. In this way, cosmopolitanism restricts the cosmos to the commercial sphere without establishing a genuine political citizenship. 4.1.2 Factual cosmopolitanization What was once only an idea or ideal has become part of how we now live. Cosmopolitanism has become the new reality, both in an objective and subjective sense, and what Ulrich Beck has called ‘banal cosmopolitanism’ (2006: p. 26). This factual cosmopolitanization, borne out of the growth of interdependence and transnationalization of ways of life and cultures, should not be confused with transnational political activities and institutional creations, even if the link between these phenomena seems quite obvious. Factual cosmopolitanization is essential to the world’s inhabitants, albeit to varying degrees. It became extremely important at the turn of the century. With the rise of global risks, it began to haunt our minds, penetrating the banality of everyday life, for example, with respect to food, altering our aesthetic tastes, and changing our approach to interstate relations by giving preference to human rights over sovereignty. It is no longer a matter of assigning positive value to the world’s political organization by imagining what the future might hold. It is rather about establishing and characterizing the multitude of processes that transform everyday life up to the point where they lead to the relativization of national borders. According to Beck, ‘reality itself has become cosmopolitan’ (ibid.: p. 10). With globalization and resistance to the latter, a new era has emerged – that of ‘reflexive modernity’. In order to see, understand, and analyse it, one must abandon the ‘national perspective’ and ‘methodological nationalism’, 4.1.3 Normative and institutional cosmopolitanism What Beck also failed to see is that normative and institutional cosmopolitanism do not flow freely and naturally from factual cosmopolitanization. This is so, firstly, because of the opposition of forces that have no interest in seeing their powers being eroded. Second, and most importantly, because a strictly empirical conceptualization of factual cosmopolitanization runs the risk of overlooking immediately what is generated from internal relations of domination in national and local settings, and what is beyond local level democratic control. Now, because the local and national spheres are losing their ‘naturalness’, for those who live in those areas, the effects of globalization imply that the normative and institutional issues arise with urgency in a political form that is antagonistic. Factual cosmopolitanization is no longer a ‘happy globalization’, but for many the dispossession of their destiny. We must give credit to Karl Renner, Austrian Social Democrat and Austro-Marxist, for encouraging the reflection on the switch between a de facto internationalism to an institutionalized internationalism (Renner, 1998). This de facto internationalism, comprised of economic, social and cultural forms of internationalization, demonstrates how the world’s legal fabric extends beyond the mere sum of nations. In the same way that the nation is the product of a historical development which culminates in its legal capacity at the end of the eighteenth century, the ‘internation’, to use Mauss’ term, will inevitably find its legal form from a substrate of facts that is poorly or not at all seen, but as such, represents a legal duty. The term ‘international’ should not be taken at face value, as it represents much more than international relations between states. Indeed, it involves the way in which the world is constructed, legally and politically, in its post-Westphalian organization. According to Mauss, the enemy is state sovereignty, as it represents an obstacle to real human interests. We are moving towards a world order that will no longer be limited by the coexistence of sovereign nation states, what Renner calls the ‘institutional Oecumene’. The creation of the League of Nations in 1920 gave way to a new era, as the ‘community of nations’ was granted legal standing above the states. Renner claims that, as a result of the establishment of the League, a ‘supra-State international law’ appeared in order to guarantee an infra-state national law, which itself protects minorities. However, as Renner argues, this step remained constrained by the desire to freeze the acquired positions after the First World War. We know that this is also exactly what happened in 1945 with the creation of the United Nations: as demonstrated recently during the COP 21, the most glaring contradiction still exists between the interstate logic of a group of sovereign states, and the need for a global community which undermines the sovereignty of each state in order to respect higher principles which cater to the interests of humanity. Hence Renner’s proposal in 1937: delegates representing ‘partial international interests’ (capital, labour, culture and so on) should be members of the League of Nations Council. It is under this condition that international interests would be taken into account, since the representatives in question would not be able to mandate all issues nationally. The question, then, is how to make this global human community exist as such. We can envision this as Renner did when describing a global parliament or, more specifically, a second chamber of representatives in which the people themselves articulate and make decisions about their economic structure and social values, along with their present grievances and hopes for the future (Renner, 1998: p. 74). Yet it is evident that the creation of a supranational chamber does not respond to the needs of those who represent ‘partial international interests’. Indeed, the parliamentary system of representation, with all its inherent vices, is simply replicated on a global scale. In order to overcome the interstate’s limitations, we must decide to make the leap from internationalism and cosmopolitanism to cosmopolitics; that is, to a political organization of humanity 4.2 Cosmopolitics The two paradigms discussed above suffer from a crippling limitation – that of humanity’s common heritage which subjects the ‘common things’ to the interstate logic, and that of GPGs, which leave the latter to the governance of private and state actors. Still, progress has been made in the establishment of humankind law. But, even assuming a legal status was assigned to humanity, this would not suffice, and neither would a cosmopolitan consciousness, in reaching cosmopolitan institutions. How do we overcome the double impasse imposed by the interstate and global private law, while paving the way for humanity’s common form of political activity; which is to say, a real democracy for humanity? I would like to highlight two points which I feel are complementary. The first relates to the institutional architecture of a global democracy and the second concerns the political activity of world citizens. The first requires, above all, a political imagination, and the second assumes that we extend the observation of collective practices and experimentations already underway. 4.2.1 The dual federation of the commons In order to introduce the first point, we must return to our discussion of the commons. Early on in this chapter, we established that the commons are institutional matters to the extent that they determine the rules of common use. In this sense, the commons emerge from what we might legally refer to as the ‘public’, not only in the orthodox economics sense of the collective nature of ‘public goods’, but also in terms of the public in opposition to the private. It is important to note that this public sui generis is non-state public. What exactly does this mean? The state’s public aims to ensure universal access to services but it does so by allowing state administration to monopolize the management of these services, thereby excluding users reduced to mere consumer status. The non-state public of the commons guarantees universal access via user participation in this management. Note that non-state does not mean anti-state, but rather, autonomous from the state. But what are we to make of the state itself? Under what conditions can it itself become a common? And how can we conceptualize its articulation to what belongs to the infra- and supra-state levels? Moreover, how can the different types of commons be organized among themselves? The magnitude of these questions led us to imagine a political system, that of non-centred federalism, which was inspired by Proudhon (1863). Indeed, he designed a dual federation of social and economic organizations, representing the municipalities as well as the production units and working companies, both of which should be governed by the principle of democracy. In a similar way, we can distinguish, on the one hand, the social-economic commons (common of river, common of forest, seed bank, production unit and so on) independently constituted of territoriality and administrative borders and, on the other hand, political commons formed through the process of increasingly integrating territories (municipalities, regions, states, international groupings of states). Yet, in all of this we are neither statists nor anarchists. We are even reluctant to consider a single global government or a single world state, which would imply a centralized form of authority that is incompatible with the democracy required by the institution of the commons. We are supporters of a polyarchic system, which should not be understood as ‘government of the many’ but instead as ‘many governments’ democratically coordinated across the world, which naturally implies a systematic intersection of different types of government, state and non-state, politics, and socio-economics. 4.2.2 Global citizenship These ‘demo-cosmopolitan’ systems will not come from above and they will not emerge from interstate decisions or contractual agreements between private actors. Historically, the exercise of constructive activist citizenship has been an important precursor to the creation of new political institutions. Today, we observe the elements of an authentic political citizenship, which is diverse, decentred and transnational at the same time. This is exemplified by anti-globalization and social movements, in the missions of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International, in the commitment of certain ecological associations to the COP 21, and via initiatives supporting public aid for migrants, and so on. This is not a citizenship that is expected to gain legal recognition, status, rights or duties as part of a state, but instead one that is called to act, engaging in transnational actions by those Beck calls ‘global public interest entrepreneurs’ (2006). We could also refer to them as global commons actors. This non-state and non-statutory citizenship must be thought of in terms of practices aimed at maintaining or acquiring rights rather than formally granting them. Only such transnational citizenship-in-action can give full meaning to the idea of cosmopolitics: politics for the world, as long as the ‘world’ implies what resonates in the Latin term mundus, namely, not the Earth as a planet and not the totality of individuals living on Earth but instead, the living connection between the individuals inhabiting in and the Earth itself. In this sense, the anti-globalization slogan ‘the world is not for sale’ is more meaningful than it might seem at first sight: the world, in itself, is not a ‘thing’ that we can own; it must be recognized as inappropriable and instituted as a common. 5. Conclusion To conclude, instituting the world as a common cannot be understood as an extension of the nation-state or city-state models at the global level. The democracy of the global commons is irreducible to a mere change of scale. Instead, it requires a genuine collective political invention, which is based on the multiplication of self-government at all levels. What is at stake here is the confrontation between two diametrically opposed logics: whereas the logic of the commons is fundamentally plural, polymorphic, non-centred in nature, the logic of state sovereignty as it was constructed in the West is intrinsically linked to an indivisible and absolute centre of power. The solution is not for several sovereignties to overlap on the same territory, as this would be incompatible with the very notion of sovereignty, but for several types of self-governments to limit each other’s power reciprocally.
Development of space resources is still possible with a commons model. Property rights are not necessary. Existing models governing commons encourage responsible development, numerous examples prove.
Saletta Sterling and Orrman-Rossiter 18 ~Sterling Saletta, Morgan; Orrman-Rossiter, Kevin (2018). Can space mining benefit all of humanity?: The resource fund and citizen's dividend model of Alaska, the ‘last frontier’. Space Policy, (), S0265964616300704–. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.02.002~ CT The Outer Space Treaty (OST) came into force in 1967 and, having been ratified by all the major space faring governments as well as some 100 other nations, the Outer Space Treaty serves as the basis for international space law, the current corpus juris spatialis. The treaty declares the exploration and use of outer space shall be for, "the benefit and in the interests of all countries ~27~" and that outer space, as mentioned previously, "shall be the province of all mankind ~27~". With the increased commercialization of space, and the entrance of new actors, both national and private, the OST has come under increased scrutiny, with calls to expand, modify, and even to abrogate it ~35,36~. Issues surrounding the mining of celestial bodies have received particular attention and debate ~37~. Of particular concern is the matter of exploitation licences and property rights ~38~. The OST expressly forbids the "national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by other means" ~27~ of outer space and celestial bodies. This is frequently interpreted to mean that the OST denies private property claims in outer space, some authors and individuals ~39–41~ have argued that appropriation by non-nationalentities is allowed. The Outer Space Treaty, and its terrestrial analogues, UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and the Antarctica Treaty System (ATS) are ‘global commons regimes', though the terminology governing these commons differs and juridical concepts such as "common heritage of humanity" found in UNCLOS (and the Moon Treaty of 1979) and the "common province of mankind" found in the Outer Space Treaty have been interpreted in various manners. Due in part to these varying wordings, interpretations and attendant uncertainties, the need for a more comprehensive framework governing the environmental, ethical, and commercial aspects of space exploration, exploitation and colonization has been highlighted by many authors ~30,33,34~. Some advocates for the commercial exploitation of space claim that the absence of property rights is a barrier to such ventures, and in particular to the mining of celestial bodies such as the Moon or near earth asteroids ~35~. Some have gone so far as to suggest an abrogation of the OST in favor of a treaty that allows something like fee-simple ownership and what might best be called a California gold rush approach to outer space resource exploitation ~36–38~. Advocates of this approach would give something like fee-simple ownership of outer space resources on a ‘first in time, first in right’ basis with no clear licensing regime for such activities ~39~. In recent US law, Title IV of H.R. 2262- the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, grants ownership of asteroid resources to entities obtaining them but attempts to walk a fine line between this approach and international treaty obligations. It does not grant ownership of asteroid themselves, and explicitly states that resource exploitation must be in accordance with federal laws and existing treaty obligations, i.e. the OST ~40~. How such eventual exploitation occurs, and under what precise national and international regulatory and licensing regimes, is thus still a matter for the future to decide. On the other hand, it has also been suggested that modifications and additions to the OST based on terrestrial models will provide sufficient guarantee of the right to make profits from the exploitation of outer space resources. Henry Hertzfeld and Frans von der Dunk argue the current regime does not pose a problem for exploitation rights and that terrestrial models would allow private ventures the right to reasonable returns on investment from resource exploitation in space ~41~. Furthermore, in addition to important, and possibly irreconcilable, differences between a California gold rush style approach and the OST ~42~, arguments suggesting fee-simple or similar ownership is necessary for profitable private outer space resource exploitation simply do not stand in the face of contrary evidence from numerous terrestrial examples. These include offshore oil drilling, mining, timber and grazing operations in the United States and internationally which are regularly and profitably undertaken without ownership ~43~. Thus P. M. Sterns and L. I. Tennen argue that the current international regime does provide an adequate framework for commercial development in space, that fee-simple ownership is unnecessary and: "those who advocate the renunciation and abandonment of the nonappropriation principle are either seeking to increase their own bottom line by disingenuous and deceptive constructs, or lack an appropriate appreciation and respect for international processes ~~44~, p. 2439~". Thus, claims that a lack of private property rights in outer space will be a deterrent to commercial resource exploitation ventures in space do not reflect an adequate reflection and analysis of the manner in which current terrestrial practices might be extended into outer space without abrogating the current treaty regime. Nor would a system based on fee simple ownership be likely to tangibly benefit more than a small proportion of the world's population. Instead, the eventual wealth from exploiting celestial bodies would be concentrated in the hands of a few, exacerbating rather than alleviating existing problems for humanity and global sustainable development. The Outer Space Treaty has provided an effective legal framework for the exploration of outer space for over 50 years. Based on the history of treaty regimes governing other international spaces, UNCLOS and the ATS, it seems likely that, in future, additional protocols and agreements will be layered onto the OST and that calls to abrogate and to negotiate a wholly new treaty system are unlikely to succeed. While low participation in the Moon Agreement, also known as the Moon Treaty of 1979, which has not been ratified by either the United States, Russia, or China, has raised questions of legitimacy, it has recently been argued that the Moon Treaty may receive renewed interest in the international community. René Lefeber argues that, far from stifling commercial ventures, the Moon Agreement "provides the best available option for mankind, states and industry to develop space mineral resources in a harmonious way ~~5~, p. 47~", and that, as resource exploitation in outer space now seems likely, the need to elaborate an international regime to prevent conflict over resources may bring other parties to ratify, accede to, or sign the treaty. Ultimately, some form of international governance of outer space as a global commons ~45~ building on the OST and the current corpus juris spatialis seems both more likely and more desirable than an abrogation of the OST and its replacement with an entirely new treaty regime. Thus, an international regime built upon this existing regime will need to be constructed which takes a balanced approach to space exploration, development and exploitation and which encourages entrepreneurial development but also moves beyond vague utopian platitudes to real and concrete benefits for all of humanity.
====Ambiguities in the OST that allow private appropriation have kicked off a race to develop space, setting the stage for a debris crisis and the domination of space by unaccountable billionaires. Current laws fail due to lax rules and forum shopping.==== Dovey 21 ~Ceridwen Dovey, "Space Exploration At What Price?," Readers Digest Asia Pacific, 5/1/21. https://www.pressreader.com/australia/readers-digest-asia-pacific/20210501/281487869174485~~ CT One environmental risk all stakeholders agree on is that posed by space debris. There’s
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questioned why there’d been no proper consultation with the scientific community before launch.
Advantage 1: Space Debris
Increasing space debris levels inevitably set off a chain of collisions.
away, meaning that there is still time to develop a solution.52
Collisions make orbit unusable, causing nuclear war, mass starvation, and economic destruction.
Les Johnson 13, Deputy Manager for NASA's Advanced Concepts Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Co-Investigator for the JAXA T-Rex Space Tether Experiment and PI of NASA's ProSEDS Experiment, Master's Degree in Physics from Vanderbilt University, Popular Science Writer, and NASA Technologist, Frequent Contributor to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Sodety and Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Space Society, the World Future Society, and MENSA, Sky Alert!: When Satellites Fail, p. 9-12 ~language modified~ Whatever the initial cause, the result may be the same. A satellite destroyed
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, our military advantage over potential adversaries would be dramatically reduced or eliminated.
Advantage 2: Corporate Colonialism
Tech-billionaires advance a vision of private space colonization as a source of infinite resources to cure society’s ills. This rationalizes unrestrained consumption and replicates the logic of imperialism.
Mccormick 21 ~Ted McCormick writes about the history of science, empire, and economic thought. He has a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and teaches at Concordia University in Montreal. "The billionaire space race reflects a colonial mindset that fails to imagine a different world". 8-15-2021. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-billionaire-space-race-reflects-a-colonial-mindset-that-fails-to-imagine-a-different-world-165235. Accessed 12-15-2021; marlborough JH~ It was a time of political uncertainty, cultural conflict and social change. Private
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in defiance of all limits. We are struggling with these consequences today.
If only wealthy elites can tap the vast resources of outer space, we lock in a permanent and unconscionable inequality. Private space colonization amounts to unchecked exploitation and authoritarian corporate control of future settlements. Spencer ‘17
, our rallying cry should be this: Keep the red planet red!
This private expansion into space results in corporate colonization of planets that undermines the interests of the rest of humanity. Spencer ’17
Spencer, Keith A. ~senior editor at Salon~"Against Mars-a-Lago: Why SpaceX's Mars Colonization Plan Should Terrify You." Salon, Salon.com, Oct. 8 2017, https://www.salon.com/2017/10/08/against-mars-a-lago-why-spacexs-mars-colonization-plan-should-terrify-you/. When CEO Elon Musk announced last month that his aerospace company SpaceX would be sending cargo missions to Mars by 2022 — the first step in his tourism-driven colonization plan — a small cheer went up among space and science enthusiasts. Writing in the New York Post, Stephen Carter called Musk’s vision "inspiring," a salve for politically contentious times. "Our species has turned its vision inward; our image of human possibility has grown cramped and pessimistic," Carter wrote: "We dream less of reaching the stars than of winning the next election; less of maturing as a species than of shunning those who are different; less of the blessings of an advanced technological tomorrow than of an apocalyptic future marked by a desperate struggle to survive. Maybe a focus on the possibility of reaching our nearest planetary neighbor will help change all that." The Post editorial reflected a growing media consensus that humankind’s ultimate destiny is the colonization of the solar system — yet on a private basis. American government leaders generally agree with this vision. Obama egged on the privatization of NASA by legislating a policy shift to private commercial spaceflight, awarding government contracts to private companies like SpaceX to shuttle supplies to the International Space Station. "Governments can develop new technology and do some of the exciting early exploration but in the long run it's the private sector that finds ways to make profit, finds ways to expand humanity," said Dr. S. Pete Worden, the director of the NASA Ames Research lab, in 2012. And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote of his ambitions to bring American-style capitalism to the stars: "In the years to come, American industry must be the first to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-Earth orbit, to expand the sphere of the economy beyond this blue marble," Pence wrote. One wonders if these luminaries know their history. There has been no instance in which a private corporation became a colonizing power that did not end badly for everyone besides the shareholders. The East India Company is perhaps the finest portent of Musk’s Martian ambitions. In 1765, the East India Company forced the Mughal emperor to sign a legal agreement that would essentially permit their company to become the de facto rulers of Bengal. The East India Company then collected taxes and used its private army, which was over 200,000 strong by the early 19th century, to repress those who got in the way of its profit margins. "It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath," writes William Dalrymple in the Guardian. "It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history." The East India Company came to colonize much of the Indian subcontinent. In the modern era, an era in which the right of corporations to do what they want, unencumbered, has become a sacrosanct right in the eyes of many politicians, the lessons of the East India Company seem to have been all but forgotten. As Dalrymple writes: Democracy as we know it was considered an advance over feudalism because of the power that it gave the commoners to share in collective governance. To privately colonize a nation, much less a planet, means ceding governance and control back to corporations whose interest is not ours, and indeed, is always at odds with workers and residents — particularly in a resource-limited environment like a spaceship or the red planet. Even if, as Musk suggests, a private foundation is put in charge of running the show on Mars, their interests will inherently be at odds with the workers and employees involved. After all, a private foundation is not a democracy; and as major philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation illustrate, often do the bidding of their rich donors, and take an important role in ripening industries and regions for exploitation by Western corporations. Yet Mars’ colonization is a bit different than Bengal, namely in that it is not merely underdeveloped; it is undeveloped. How do you start an entirely new economy on a virgin world with no industry? After all, Martian resource extraction and trade with Earth is not feasible; the cost of transporting material across the solar system is astronomical, and there are no obvious minerals on Mars that we don’t already have in abundance on Earth. The only basis for colonization of Mars that Musk can conceive of is one based on tourism: the rich pay an amount — Musk quotes the ticket price at $200,000 if he can get 1 million tourists to pay that — that entitles them to a round-trip ticket. And while they’re on Mars and traveling to it, they luxuriate: Musk has assured that the trip would be "fun." This is what makes Musk’s Mars vision so different than, say, the Apollo missions or the International Space Station. This isn’t really exploration for humanity’s sake — there’s not that much science assumed here, as there was in the Moon missions. Musk wants to build the ultimate luxury package, exclusively for the richest among us. Musk isn’t trying to build something akin to Matt Damon’s spartan research base in "The Martian." He wants to build Mars-a-Lago. And an economy based on tourism, particularly high-end tourism, needs employees — even if a high degree of automation is assumed. And as I’ve written about before, that means a lot of labor at the lowest cost possible. Imagine signing away years of your life to be a housekeeper in the Mars-a-Lago hotel, with your communications, water, food, energy usage, even oxygen tightly managed by your employer, and no government to file a grievance to if your employer cuts your wages, harasses you, cuts off your oxygen. Where would Mars-a-Lago's employees turn if their rights were impinged upon? Oh wait, this planet is run privately? You have no rights. Musk's vision for Mars colonization is inherently authoritarian. The potential for the existence of the employees of the Martian tourism industry to slip into something resembling indentured servitude, even slavery, cannot be underestimated. We have government regulations for a reason on Earth — to protect us from the fresh horror Musk hopes to export to Mars. If he's considered these questions, he doesn't seem to care; for Musk, the devil's in the technological and financial details. The social and political are pretty uninteresting to him. This is unsurprising; accounts from those who have worked closely with him hint that he, like many CEOs, may be a sociopath. Even as a space enthusiast, I cannot get excited about the private colonization of Mars. You shouldn’t be either. This is not a giant leap for mankind; this is the next great leap in plutocracy. The mere notion that global wealth is so unevenly distributed that a small but sufficient sum of rich people could afford this trip is unsettling, indicative of the era of astonishing economic inequality in which we suffer. Thomas Frank, writing in Harpers, once wrote of a popular t-shirt he sighted while picnicking in a small West Virginia coal town: "Mine it union or keep it in the ground." The idea, of course, is that the corporations interested in resource extraction do not care whatsoever about their workers’ health, safety, or well-being; the union had their interests at heart, and was able to negotiate for safety, job security, and so on. I’d like to see a similar t-shirt or bumper sticker emerge among scientists and space enthusiasts: "Explore Mars democratically, or keep it in the sky."
Neoliberalism destroys ethics, locks in poverty and exploitation, decimates the environment, and causes war.
Werlhof 15 – Claudia, Professor of Political Science/Women's Studies, University Innsbruck (Austria), 2015 ("Neoliberal Globalization: Is There an Alternative to Plundering the Earth?" Global Research, May 25th, Available Online at http://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberal-globalization-is-there-an-alternative-to-plundering-the-earth/24403) At the center of both old and new economic liberalism lies: Self-interest and individualism; segregation of ethical principles and economic affairs, in other words: a process of ‘de-bedding’ economy from society; economic rationality as a mere cost-benefit calculation and profit maximization; competition as the essential driving force for growth and progress; specialization and the replacement of a subsistence economy with profit-oriented foreign trade (‘comparative cost advantage’); and the proscription of public (state) interference with market forces.~3~ Where the new economic liberalism outdoes the old is in its global claim. Today’s economic liberalism functions as a model for each and everyone: all parts of the economy, all sectors of society, of life/nature itself. As a consequence, the once "de-bedded" economy now claims to "im-bed" everything, including political power. Furthermore, a new twisted "economic ethics" (and with it a certain idea of "human nature") emerges that mocks everything from so-called do-gooders to altruism to selfless help to care for others to a notion of responsibility.~4~ This goes as far as claiming that the common good depends entirely on the uncontrolled egoism of the individual and, especially, on the prosperity of transnational corporations. The allegedly necessary "freedom" of the economy – which, paradoxically, only means the freedom of corporations – hence consists of a freedom from responsibility and commitment to society. The maximization of profit itself must occur within the shortest possible time; this means, preferably, through speculation and "shareholder value". It must meet as few obstacles as possible. Today, global economic interests outweigh not only extra-economic concerns but also national economic considerations since corporations today see themselves beyond both community and nation.~5~ A "level playing field" is created that offers the global players the best possible conditions. This playing field knows of no legal, social, ecological, cultural or national "barriers".~6~ As a result, economic competition plays out on a market that is free of all non-market, extra-economic or protectionist influences – unless they serve the interests of the big players (the corporations), of course. The corporations’ interests – their maximal growth and progress – take on complete priority. This is rationalized by alleging that their well-being means the well-being of small enterprises and workshops as well. The difference between the new and the old economic liberalism can first be articulated in quantitative terms: after capitalism went through a series of ruptures and challenges – caused by the "competing economic system", the crisis of capitalism, post-war "Keynesianism" with its social and welfare state tendencies, internal mass consumer demand (so-called Fordism), and the objective of full employment in the North. The liberal economic goals of the past are now not only euphorically resurrected but they are also "globalized". The main reason is indeed that the competition between alternative economic systems is gone. However, to conclude that this confirms the victory of capitalism and the "golden West" over "dark socialism" is only one possible interpretation. Another – opposing – interpretation is to see the "modern world system" (which contains both capitalism and socialism) as having hit a general crisis which causes total and merciless competition over global resources while leveling the way for investment opportunities, i.e. the valorization of capital.~7~ The ongoing globalization of neoliberalism demonstrates which interpretation is right. Not least, because the differences between the old and the new economic liberalism can not only be articulated in quantitative terms but in qualitative ones too. What we are witnessing are completely new phenomena: instead of a democratic "complete competition" between many small enterprises enjoying the freedom of the market, only the big corporations win. In turn, they create new market oligopolies and monopolies of previously unknown dimensions. The market hence only remains free for them, while it is rendered unfree for all others who are condemned to an existence of dependency (as enforced producers, workers and consumers) or excluded from the market altogether (if they have neither anything to sell or buy). About fifty percent of the world’s population fall into this group today, and the percentage is rising.~8~ Anti-trust laws have lost all power since the transnational corporations set the norms. It is the corporations – not "the market" as an anonymous mechanism or "invisible hand" – that determine today’s rules of trade, for example prices and legal regulations. This happens outside any political control. Speculation with an average twenty percent profit margin edges out honest producers who become "unprofitable".~9~ Money becomes too precious for comparatively non-profitable, long-term projects, or projects that only – how audacious! – serve a good life. Money instead "travels upwards" and disappears. Financial capital determines more and more what the markets are and do.~10~ By delinking the dollar from the price of gold, money creation no longer bears a direct relationship to production".~11~ Moreover, these days most of us are – exactly like all governments – in debt. It is financial capital that has all the money – we have none.~12~ Small, medium, even some bigger enterprises are pushed out of the market, forced to fold or swallowed by transnational corporations because their performances are below average in comparison to speculation – rather: spookulation – wins. The public sector, which has historically been defined as a sector of not-for-profit economy and administration, is "slimmed" and its "profitable" parts ("gems") handed to corporations (privatized). As a consequence, social services that are necessary for our existence disappear. Small and medium private businesses – which, until recently, employed eighty percent of the workforce and provided normal working conditions – are affected by these developments as well. The alleged correlation between economic growth and secure employment is false. When economic growth is accompanied by the mergers of businesses, jobs are lost.~13~ If there are any new jobs, most are precarious, meaning that they are only available temporarily and badly paid. One job is usually not enough to make a living.~14~ This means that the working conditions in the North become akin to those in the South, and the working conditions of men akin to those of women – a trend diametrically opposed to what we have always been told. Corporations now leave for the South (or East) to use cheap – and particularly female – labor without union affiliation. This has already been happening since the 1970s in the "Export Processing Zones" (EPZs, "world market factories" or "maquiladoras"), where most of the world’s computer chips, sneakers, clothes and electronic goods are produced.~15~ The EPZs lie in areas where century-old colonial-capitalist and authoritarian-patriarchal conditions guarantee the availability of cheap labor.~16~ The recent shift of business opportunities from consumer goods to armaments is a particularly troubling development.~17~ It is not only commodity production that is "outsourced" and located in the EPZs, but service industries as well. This is a result of the so-called Third Industrial Revolution, meaning the development of new information and communication technologies. Many jobs have disappeared entirely due to computerization, also in administrative fields.~18~ The combination of the principles of "high tech" and "low wage"/"no wage" (always denied by "progress" enthusiasts) guarantees a "comparative cost advantage" in foreign trade. This will eventually lead to "Chinese wages" in the West. A potential loss of Western consumers is not seen as a threat. A corporate economy does not care whether consumers are European, Chinese or Indian. The means of production become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially since finance capital – rendered precarious itself – controls asset values ever more aggressively. New forms of private property are created, not least through the "clearance" of public property and the transformation of formerly public and small-scale private services and industries to a corporate business sector. This concerns primarily fields that have long been (at least partly) excluded from the logic of profit – e.g. education, health, energy or water supply/disposal. New forms of so-called enclosures emerge from today’s total commercialization of formerly small-scale private or public industries and services, of the "commons", and of natural resources like oceans, rain forests, regions of genetic diversity or geopolitical interest (e.g. potential pipeline routes), etc.~19~ As far as the new virtual spaces and communication networks go, we are witnessing frantic efforts to bring these under private control as well.~20~ All these new forms of private property are essentially created by (more or less) predatory forms of appropriation. In this sense, they are a continuation of the history of so-called original accumulation which has expanded globally, in accordance with to the motto: "Growth through expropriation!"~21~ Most people have less and less access to the means of production, and so the dependence on scarce and underpaid work increases. The destruction of the welfare state also destroys the notion that individuals can rely on the community to provide for them in times of need. Our existence relies exclusively on private, i.e. expensive, services that are often of much worse quality and much less reliable than public services. (It is a myth that the private always outdoes the public.) What we are experiencing is undersupply formerly only known by the colonial South. The old claim that the South will eventually develop into the North is proven wrong. It is the North that increasingly develops into the South. We are witnessing the latest form of "development", namely, a world system of underdevelopment.~22~ Development and underdevelopment go hand in hand.~23~ This might even dawn on "development aid" workers soon. It is usually women who are called upon to counterbalance underdevelopment through increased work ("service provisions") in the household. As a result, the workload and underpay of women takes on horrendous dimensions: they do unpaid work inside their homes and poorly paid "housewifized" work outside.~24~ Yet, commercialization does not stop in front of the home’s doors either. Even housework becomes commercially co-opted ("new maid question"), with hardly any financial benefits for the women who do the work.~25~ Not least because of this, women are increasingly coerced into prostitution, one of today’s biggest global industries.~26~ This illustrates two things: a) how little the "emancipation" of women actually leads to "equal terms" with men; and b) that "capitalist development" does not imply increased "freedom" in wage labor relations, as the Left has claimed for a long time.~27~ If the latter were the case, then neoliberalism would mean the voluntary end of capitalism once it reaches its furthest extension. This, however, does not appear likely. Today, hundreds of millions of quasi-slaves, more than ever before, exist in the "world system."~28~ The authoritarian model of the "Export Processing Zones" is conquering the East and threatening the North. The redistribution of wealth runs ever more – and with ever accelerated speed – from the bottom to the top. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. The middle classes disappear. This is the situation we are facing. It becomes obvious that neoliberalism marks not the end of colonialism but, to the contrary, the colonization of the North. This new "colonization of the world"~29~ points back to the beginnings of the "modern world system" in the "long 16th century", when the conquering of the Americas, their exploitation and colonial transformation allowed for the rise and "development" of Europe.~30~ The so-called "children’s diseases" of modernity keep on haunting it, even in old age. They are, in fact, the main feature of modernity’s latest stage. They are expanding instead of disappearing. Where there is no South, there is no North; where there is no periphery, there is no center; where there is no colony, there is no – in any case no "Western" – civilization.~31~ Austria is part of the world system too. It is increasingly becoming a corporate colony (particularly of German corporations). This, however, does not keep it from being an active colonizer itself, especially in the East.~32~ Social, cultural, traditional and ecological considerations are abandoned and give way to a mentality of plundering. All global resources that we still have – natural resources, forests, water, genetic pools – have turned into objects of utilization. Rapid ecological destruction through depletion is the consequence. If one makes more profit by cutting down trees than by planting them, then there is no reason not to cut them.~33~ Neither the public nor the state interferes, despite global warming and the obvious fact that the clearing of the few remaining rain forests will irreversibly destroy the earth’s climate – not to mention the many other negative effects of such actions.~34~ Climate, animal, plants, human and general ecological rights are worth nothing compared to the interests of the corporations – no matter that the rain forest is not a renewable resource and that the entire earth’s ecosystem depends on it. If greed, and the rationalism with which it is economically enforced, really was an inherent anthropological trait, we would have never even reached this day. The commander of the Space Shuttle that circled the earth in 2005 remarked that "the center of Africa was burning". She meant the Congo, in which the last great rain forest of the continent is located. Without it there will be no more rain clouds above the sources of the Nile. However, it needs to disappear in order for corporations to gain free access to the Congo’s natural resources that are the reason for the wars that plague the region today. After all, one needs diamonds and coltan for mobile phones. Today, everything on earth is turned into commodities, i.e. everything becomes an object of "trade" and commercialization (which truly means liquidation, the transformation of all into liquid money). In its neoliberal stage it is not enough for capitalism to globally pursue less cost-intensive and preferably "wageless" commodity production. The objective is to transform everyone and everything into commodities, including life itself.~35~ We are racing blindly towards the violent and absolute conclusion of this "mode of production", namely total capitalization/liquidation by "monetarization".~36~ We are not only witnessing perpetual praise of the market – we are witnessing what can be described as "market fundamentalism". People believe in the market as if it was a god. There seems to be a sense that nothing could ever happen without it. Total global maximized accumulation of money/capital as abstract wealth becomes the sole purpose of economic activity. A "free" world market for everything has to be established – a world market that functions according to the interests of the corporations and capitalist money. The installment of such a market proceeds with dazzling speed. It creates new profit possibilities where they have not existed before, e.g. in Iraq, Eastern Europe or China. One thing remains generally overlooked: the abstract wealth created for accumulation implies the destruction of nature as concrete wealth. The result is a "hole in the ground" and next to it a garbage dump with used commodities, outdated machinery and money without value.~37~ However, once all concrete wealth (which today consists mainly of the last natural resources) will be gone, abstract wealth will disappear as well. It will, in Marx’s words, "evaporate". The fact that abstract wealth is not real wealth will become obvious, and so will the answer to the question of which wealth modern economic activity has really created. In the end it is nothing but monetary wealth (and even this mainly exists virtually or on accounts) that constitutes a monoculture controlled by a tiny minority. Diversity is suffocated and millions of people are left wondering how to survive. And really: how do you survive with neither resources nor means of production nor money? The nihilism of our economic system is evident. The whole world will be transformed into money – and then it will disappear. After all, money cannot be eaten. What no one seems to consider is the fact that it is impossible to re-transform commodities, money, capital and machinery into nature or concrete wealth. It seems that underlying all "economic development" is the assumption that "resources", the "sources of wealth",~38~ are renewable and everlasting – just like the "growth" they create.~39~ The notion that capitalism and democracy are one is proven a myth by neoliberalism and its "monetary totalitarianism".~40~ The primacy of politics over economy has been lost. Politicians of all parties have abandoned it. It is the corporations that dictate politics. Where corporate interests are concerned, there is no place for democratic convention or community control. Public space disappears. The res publica turns into a res privata, or – as we could say today – a res privata transnationale (in its original Latin meaning, privare means "to deprive"). Only those in power still have rights. They give themselves the licenses they need, from the "license to plunder" to the "license to kill".~41~ Those who get in their way or challenge their "rights" are vilified, criminalized and to an increasing degree defined as "terrorists" or, in the case of defiant governments, as "rogue states" – a label that usually implies threatened or actual military attack, as we can see in the cases of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Syria and Iran in the near future. U.S. President Bush had even spoken of the possibility of "preemptive" nuclear strikes should the U.S. feel endangered by weapons of mass destruction.~42~ The European Union did not object.~43~ Neoliberalism and war are two sides of the same coin.~44~ Free trade, piracy and war are still "an inseparable three" – today maybe more so than ever. War is not only "good for the economy" but is indeed its driving force and can be understood as the "continuation of economy with other means".~45~ War and economy have become almost indistinguishable.~46~ Wars about resources – especially oil and water – have already begun.~47~ The Gulf Wars are the most obvious examples. Militarism once again appears as the "executor of capital accumulation" – potentially everywhere and enduringly.~48~ Human rights and rights of sovereignty have been transferred from people, communities and governments to corporations.~49~ The notion of the people as a sovereign body has practically been abolished. We have witnessed a coup of sorts. The political systems of the West and the nation state as guarantees for and expression of the international division of labor in the modern world system are increasingly dissolving.~50~ Nation states are developing into "periphery states" according to the inferior role they play in the proto-despotic "New World Order".~51~ Democracy appears outdated. After all, it "hinders business".~52~ The "New World Order" implies a new division of labor that does no longer distinguish between North and South, East and West – today, everywhere is South. An according International Law is established which effectively functions from top to bottom ("top-down") and eliminates all local and regional communal rights. And not only that: many such rights are rendered invalid both retroactively and for the future.~53~ The logic of neoliberalism as a sort of totalitarian neo-mercantilism is that all resources, all markets, all money, all profits, all means of production, all "investment opportunities", all rights and all power belong to the corporations only. To paraphrase Richard Sennett: "Everything to the Corporations!"~54~ One might add: "Now!" The corporations are free to do whatever they please with what they get. Nobody is allowed to interfere. Ironically, we are expected to rely on them to find a way out of the crisis we are in. This puts the entire globe at risk since responsibility is something the corporations do not have or know. The times of social contracts are gone.~55~ In fact, pointing out the crisis alone has become a crime and all critique will soon be defined as "terror" and persecuted as such.~56~ IMF Economic Medicine Since the 1980s, it is mainly the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF that act as the enforcers of neoliberalism. These programs are levied against the countries of the South which can be extorted due to their debts. Meanwhile, numerous military interventions and wars help to take possession of the assets that still remain, secure resources, install neoliberalism as the global economic politics, crush resistance movements (which are cynically labeled as "IMF uprisings"), and facilitate the lucrative business of reconstruction.~57~ In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher introduced neoliberalism in Anglo-America. In 1989, the so-called "Washington Consensus" was formulated. It claimed to lead to global freedom, prosperity and economic growth through "deregulation, liberalization and privatization". This has become the credo and promise of all neoliberals. Today we know that the promise has come true for the corporations only – not for anybody else. In the Middle East, the Western support for Saddam Hussein in the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, and the Gulf War of the early 1990s, announced the permanent U.S. presence in the world’s most contested oil region. In continental Europe, neoliberalism began with the crisis in Yugoslavia caused by the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF. The country was heavily exploited, fell apart and finally beset by a civil war over its last remaining resources.~58~ Since the NATO war in 1999, the Balkans are fragmented, occupied and geopolitically under neoliberal control.~59~ The region is of main strategic interest for future oil and gas transport from the Caucasus to the West (for example the "Nabucco" gas pipeline that is supposed to start operating from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and the Balkans by 2011.~60~ The reconstruction of the Balkans is exclusively in the hands of Western corporations. All governments, whether left, right, liberal or green, accept this. There is no analysis of the connection between the politics of neoliberalism, its history, its background and its effects on Europe and other parts of the world. Likewise, there is no analysis of its connection to the new militarism.
Plan/Solvency
Thus, the plan: States ought to adopt a binding international agreement that bans the appropriation of outer space by private entities by establishing outer space as a global commons subject to regulatory delimiting and global liability.
The aff:
solves debris and space colonialism by ensuring the sustainable and equitable use of outer space resources.
prevents circumvention by aligning the interests of state parties is normal means since it models numerous successful agreements governing all other global commons. Vollmer 20 ~Sarah Louise Vollmer (St. Mary's University School of Law), "The Right Stuff in Geospace: Using Mutual Coercion to Avoid an Inevitable Prison for Humanity," 51 ST. MARY'S L.J. 777 (2020). https://commons.stmarytx.edu/thestmaryslawjournal/vol51/iss3/6?utm'source=commons.stmarytx.edu2Fthestmaryslawjournal2Fvol512Fiss32F6andutm'medium=PDFandutm'campaign=PDFCoverPages ~CT IV. NECESSITY FOR REGULATION TO PRESERVE THE HERITAGE OF MANKIND—A PROPOSAL Conceptually, all persons hold an implied property right in the space commons.111 As such, spacefaring entities and developing nations possess an equitable right to access and use orbital resources.112 But the sui generis nature of geospace presents a paradox requiring a unique regime for the sustainable usage of its resources.113 The international community cannot realize the advantages of the common heritage principle under a property regime because any conceivable assignment would violate the non-appropriation clause or unjustly enrich a particular interest.114 This means that only regulatory solutions can protect the interests inherent in a commons protected for the common heritage of mankind. A. The Motivations for International Compliance The crux of a workable treaty lies in the consent of the parties to the agreement.115 Thereafter, signatories internalize the agreement’s object and purpose into their domestic law, or in the case of international organizations, into an institutional framework.116 To implement a binding international instrument, we must therefore ask the question: Why do nations follow international law,117 and how can we use those behavioral realities to construct a workable framework to ensure geospace survives?118 At the dawn of civilized society, depending on a particular jurisdiction’s values, the laws of nature and morality compelled obedience and social order.119 When nation-states concluded international agreements, it represented the coalescence of the various values-based systems, the overlap of which formed a universal understanding of the law of mankind.120 "~The~ fundamental conceptual boundary between municipal and international law . . . view~s~ international law largely in terms of contractual relations, therefore assigning to the ‘sovereign’ a central place in the construction of the two orders."121 In other words, transnational cooperation operated through balancing the competing autonomy and values of the parties involved. Despite centuries of debate, values systems remain the principal motivating factor of compliance with international law.122 Effective regulatory regimes must, therefore, strike at the heart of what nation-states value the most, which is often related to national security.123 When entering an international agreement, whether or not a nation-state will ratify it informs us of the value a nation-state places on the instrument’s subject matter. That value equates to the utility a nation-state places on certain allowances or prohibitions.124 Incorporating these motivating factors with Hardin’s regulatory solution, any freedoms infringed upon must manifest a higher utility than currently realized. If COPUOS proposes a protocol for sustainable uses of space, the provisions must either have a negligible effect on the global community’s perceived utility of space access or substantially increase that utility. Assuming the propositioned regulatory scheme aligns with the values system of each nation-state, the probability of internalizing such regulations through domestic codification is high. To ascertain the interests of nation-states, we must look to the factors motivating current space utilization. Routine access to space undeniably aids our technological advancement. The ISS’s antigravity environment provides unique conditions to study medicine.125 Satellites provide real-time tracking of environmental conditions and transmit crucial information for disaster recovery planning.126 Space telescopes track objects with the potential to cause the extinction of life of Earth.127 Free from the veil of our hazy atmosphere, satellites can produce better imagery and ascertain the composition of potential resource deposits on celestial bodies.128 And simply receiving satellite imagery of our planet forces us to confront the realities of our fragile existence. These benefits signify the tangible realization of the OST’s object and purpose, which flow to all members of the global community.129 If we do not begin active decontamination and mitigation of space debris, the utility of geospace will cease to exist. Imagining our existence without these advances is a potent method to stress the criticality of unabated pollution in geospace. B. Existing Proposals Legal scholars have formulated several frameworks to mitigate space debris. Some recommend implementing a market-share liability regime, which assigns liability according to the volume of each nation-states’ exploits.130 Opponents of this construction rightfully highlight the inequities inherent in such a scheme. Considering the United States, Russia, and China make up the bulk of spacefaring activity, market-share liability would unduly burden these nations, and coerce a categorical exit from the space industry or a repeat of the Moon Treaty.131 Another scholar advocates for an environmental law approach, asserting that the space commons would benefit from a protocol closely mirroring the Madrid Protocol.132 While prospective applications of such a model could prevent additional accumulations, it would not feasibly abate the current collection of debris.133 The strengths of Mary Button’s mitigation proposal lie in the binding nature of the Madrid Protocol and compulsory environmental impact requirements. And though it advocates for a more collaborative conference mechanism, rather than the strict unanimous consent required of UNCOPUOS’s resolutions, it still shies away from compulsory requirements for active debris removal. Along with the Antarctic Treaty (ATS), the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) also served as a model for the Corpus Juris Spatialis. But oddly, the law of salvage was omitted from the treaties. Unlike abandoned objects at sea, once a nation-state places an object into space, ownership exists in perpetuity. Sandra Drago addressed removing the OST’s property-in-perpetuity mechanism134 so as to permit the active salvage of inoperable satellites.135 Drago’s proposal is vital to any mitigation framework. But while this removes a substantial bar currently restricting debris removal, it does not address free-riding, and spacefaring enterprises are free to choose more lucrative space activities other than salvage operations.136 C. A Coercive Proposal Mutual coercion lies at the core of Hardin’s solution.137 To summarize, law-abiding citizens make concessions to regulatory social constructs in the interest of conserving some utility otherwise lost.138 The coercive element lies in relinquishing one’s ability to exploit some freedom, the detriment of which cannot be realized at that moment in time.139 Conceding to a regime that tempers free exploitation of the commons allows everyone to benefit from the positive externalities of individual usage. Equated to space, nation-states currently concede to non-appropriation in the interest of maintaining equitable access. But because of the sui generis nature of geospace, even non-participants receive a benefit from the use of the commons. In effect, beneficiaries are free-riding from the capital investment of spacefaring nations and entities. This informs the structure of the ensuing two-part framework: geospace delimitation and global liability
Geospace Delimitation The history of regulatory delimitation illustrates its effectiveness at balancing the rights of individuals, sovereigns, and mankind. Each instance explained in Part II infra, arose out of public necessity to ensure and protect the maximum utility of the global commons, without the deleteriousness of inhabitability, sovereign interference, or over-exploitation.140 The regimes governing Antarctica, the High Seas, the Atmosphere, and the radio-frequency spectrum evidence that mutually coercive delimitation can honor the common heritage of mankind, without encroaching on the peaceful enjoyment and benefits attributable to these areas. a. Antarctica In the 1950s, there was concern that Antarctica would succumb to Cold War hysteria, becoming a target for international discord and nuclear arms testing.141 In a move to reestablish global scientific exchange, the international scientific community hosted the International Geophysical Year project, and after identifying the potential of Antarctica, sought to protect it from any ruinous power posturing.142 This necessity for regulating permissible activity resulted in the formation of the ATS.143 Subsequent technological advancement revealed mineral deposits, triggering commercial interest in exploiting its natural resources. The threat catalyzed the promulgation of the Madrid Protocol.144 Again, these delimitations did not sever humanity’s utility in Antarctica. Rather, mankind conceded to the prohibition of deleterious usage in the interest of preserving its scientific utility.145 b. The High Seas Similar to Antarctica, the High Seas faced threats in the 1960s when nation-states began unilaterally and arbitrarily, extending resource recovery activities further into the depths of international waters.146 In the interest of equity, particularly the interests of landlocked nations, UNCLOS delimited sovereign access to the seas, allowing usage only within the established exclusive economic zones (EEZs).147 An annex to UNCLOS provided a procedural framework in which resource recovery enterprises could operate in international common areas beyond the EEZs, precluding the unilateral capture of global resources by one nation.148 Once more, a mutually coercive framework removed certain freedoms in the interest of mankind without unjustly limiting equitable access to resources. c. The Atmosphere Divergent from the problems of the ice and sea, atmospheric regulation resolved an issue more analogous to geospace debris proliferation. Atmospheric utility is quite simple: breathable air and protection from deadly cosmic radiation. When satellite imagery revealed the sizable hole in the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention placed an outright ban on ozone-depleting chemicals in everyday consumables.149 This prohibition directly addressed the source of the negative externality, forcing humanity to internalize the externality through alternate investment in refrigerants. Recent evidence of the reduction of ozone loss validates the mutually coercive delimitation within the Montreal Protocol.150 d. Regulating the Telecommunication Spectrum The business model and financial strategy of telecommunications entities influence satellite deployment planning. Typically, orbital placement aims to "maximize ~a~ potential user base," and if that base happens to encompass, for instance, the continental United States, market competition drastically narrows the availability of slots for satellite positioning.151 Realizing that satellite acquisition becomes moot without conscientious "use of telemetry and control . . . required for spaceflight,"152 the Space Radiocommunication Conference convened to revise the Radio Regulations in 1963,153 granting the ITU authority to allocate radio frequencies among spacefaring entities.154 Originally, the ITU: ~A~llocated orbits and frequencies solely through a first-in-time system. This led to concern that developed countries would secure all of the available slots before developing countries had the technological capacity to use them. Although some orbits and frequencies are still allocated on a first-in-time basis, each state is now guaranteed a certain number of future orbits and frequencies, regardless of its current technological capacity.155 The FCC regulates the segment of the electromagnetic spectrum allocated to the United States.156 Arguably, the ITU and agencies like the FCC engage in de facto appropriation of the more highly sought-after orbits.157 Yet to an extent, the ITU’s delimiting of the radio-frequency spectrum remedied the negative externalities of non-appropriation in geospace, such as the overcrowding of active satellites and the resultant interference. Where the ITU’s scheme does not remedy the byproduct of geospace resource use, it succeeds in ensuring communication capabilities remain free from inequitable use.158 e. The OST’s Ineffective Delimitations The recurrent theme among the aforementioned regulatory schemes is the preservation of utility within the commons concerned.159 The frameworks each provide a means to enjoy shared resources while removing the potential for destruction. The OST’s nonproliferation provisions properly regulate the usage of the space commons to further the enjoyment of space’s true utility: scientific discovery and telecommunications. Likewise, the Liability Convention reinforces the necessity to maintain heightened situational awareness to guarantee the mutual, uninterrupted enjoyment of activity in space.160 But nation-states exploit the loop-holes within these documents to avoid internalizing some of their externalities. Specifically, the Liability Convention only assigns liability for damage caused to space objects when fault can actually be determined.161 Though it would be simple to assign fault to a collision caused by an intact and inoperative satellite, it is virtually impossible to identify the owner of smaller pieces of debris. Further, while the ITU reserves slots for nations not represented in space,162 it does nothing to stop those capable of reaching geospace from littering the commons and destroying the utility of reserved slots.163 Holistically, none of the delimitations in the Corpus Juris Spatialis negate the cause of the growing belt of debris in geospace. As a sui generis resource, the mere occupation of LEO or GSO equates to the reduction of the overall utility of geospace. When an entity launches a rocket into space, the accompanying payload causes either (1) temporary reduction of the aggregate utility of geospace or (2) permanent reduction of the aggregate utility of geospace.164 The first delimitation prong will recommend bifurcating the applicability of the Corpus Juris Spatialis, with separate regimes for outer space and geospace. While the commercialization of outer space is not overly injurious to the international commons or interests of developing nations, the overcrowding of affluent spacefaring entities vying for orbital acquisition puts immense pressure on the finite resources within geospace. Therefore, demarcating the upper limit of geospace will allow entities to continue exploring the universe without imposing the restrictions placed on those seeking geospace positioning.165 This modification will allow continued use of both regions, but coerce more sustainable usage of geospace with the assistance of the secondary prong below. 2. Global Liability Operating under the theory that humanity holds an implied property right in the global commons but limited under the non-appropriation clause to protect those interests through traditional property mechanisms, the logical alternative is to impose liability on actions violative of the global interest.166 Further, assuming humanity collectively benefits from utilization of this commons, then humanity likewise must internalize the cost of the negative externalities imposed.167 This means that spacefarers, as members of the global collective, hold both the right and obligation to protect that right for others.168 Therefore, anyone utilizing or benefitting from the utilization of the geospace commons has an equitable duty to ensure its sustainability. Under traditional tort theories, when one has a duty, breach of that duty causally linked to a measurable injury is actionable. In terms of the duty to humanity when utilizing geospace, the culmination of Kessler Syndrome represents the measurable injury. Kessler informed the scientific community in 1970 of the probable cataclysmic chain-reaction and destructive conclusion of unabated geospace debris pollution.169 This theory, reiterated consistently since its dissemination, materialized in 2009.170 Fundamentally, every spacefaring entity and approving launching state knows of this monumental threat to the utility of geospace. Yet to date, mitigation guidelines remain non-binding, and four-figure satellite constellations continue to receive approval.171 To incorporate a time-honored risk calculation method, the Hand Formula is instructive and evidences a trend toward unapologetic endangerment to the utility of geospace in isolation of the associated tort regime. Let us assume the burden to mitigate space debris is $18.5 million172 but the probable magnitude of not mitigating the accumulation of space debris equates to reverting our technological capabilities back to the 1800s. Considering the accumulation of debris from the accidental or intentional breakup of geospace satellites, the probability of Kessler Syndrome fully concluding in the absence of a comprehensive mitigation protocol is one hundred percent.173 While difficult to quantify, the value of our scientific progress attributable to the advent of space travel far outstrips the burden to mitigate space debris. Should Kessler Syndrome become our reality, the measurable injury is the cost of reestablishing global communications without the usage of satellite relays. To add insult to injury, the invaluable utility of geospace will cease to exist. A viable alternative would institute a regime of shared global liability which makes consideration of capital investors as well as nonparticipating beneficiaries in the interest of equity. That is, should the inevitable prison for humanity become a reality, the entire global community will be liable to pay an equitable share of the overall cost of recovery efforts.174 The Liability Convention should undergo a similar trifurcation, adding this new scheme to the current strict and absolute liability mechanisms.175 As such, shared global liability will consider the responsibility of nation-states and private entities in isolation.176 This will coerce cooperation among all agencies, nations, and private entities because the equitable share of responsibility will drive collective resolution. V. CONCLUSION In light of the emerging global sentiments regarding environmental conservation and sustainability, instituting a regime that clearly defines a legal consequence in the event of environmental ruin boasts greater coercive force than non-binding resolutions. 9 This international agreement aligns with the universal value that the international community places on the utility of geospace.177 In essence, it protects geospace by forcing the signatory to face the reality of their negative externalities. It is unlikely that a nation-state exists that does not value space exploration and the benefits attributable. In April of 2019, in the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), COPUOS adopted an agenda that focused on the long-term sustainability of the space commons, space traffic management, equitable uses of GSO, and the mitigation of space debris.178 Mindful of space’s critical role in attaining many of the SDGs, the Committee put forth guidelines to facilitate capacity building without prejudice to any one nation-states’ economic capabilities. To be sure, the Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities are an important step forward, but many delegates reiterated the importance of developing binding instruments, particularly in light of developments in "space resource exploitation, large constellations, and space debris remediation."179 Looking forward, research continues to advance the availability of debris mitigation mechanisms, such as the European Space Agency’s newly-commissioned ClearSpace-1 satellite.180 Mission objectives increasingly include end-of-life procedures to place satellites in appropriate orbits to decrease clutter in areas where active satellites operate.181 In the context of private entities, Planetary Resources—originally positioned to become a principle player in the space mining industry—merged with Consensys Space and quickly launched TruSat, a crowd-sourced situational awareness forum that compiles the reports of private citizens to track objects in geospace.182 These developments instill confidence in the international community’s sentiments toward ameliorating this ever-approaching catastrophe. It is with great hope that this trend continues, and COPUOS promulgates binding regulations to ensure the sustainability of geospace for the common heritage of mankind. "But we can never do nothing. That which we have done for thousands of years is also action. It also produces evils."183
Treating space as a commons solves orbital debris. Current non-binding agreements are not enough.
Silverstein and Panda ‘3/9 - Benjamin Silverstein ~research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MA, International Relations, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs BA, International Affairs, George Washington University~ and Ankit Panda ~Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AB, Princeton University~, "Space Is a Great Commons. It’s Time to Treat It as Such." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Web). March 9, 2021. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/09/space-is-great-commons.-it-s-time-to-treat-it-as-such-pub-84018 AT The failure to manage Earth orbits as a commons undermines safety and predictability, exposing space operators to growing risks such as collisions with other satellites and debris. The long-standing debris problem has been building for decades and demands an international solution.¶ Competing states need to coalesce behind a commons-based understanding of Earth orbits to set the table for a governance system to organize space traffic and address rampant debris. New leadership in the United States can spur progress on space governance by affirming that Earth orbits are a great commons. So far, President Joe Biden and his administration have focused on major space projects, but a relatively simple policy declaration that frames Earth orbits as a great commons can support efforts to negotiate space governance models for issues like debris mitigation and remediation. The Biden administration can set the stage to pursue broad space policy goals by establishing a consensus among states, particularly those with the most invested in Earth orbits, that space is a great commons.¶ THE PRESSING NEED FOR SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ The Earth orbits that provide the majority of benefits to states and commercial ventures represent only a tiny fraction of outer space as a whole. Competition for the limited volume of these Earth orbits is especially fierce since two satellites cannot be in the same place at the same time and not all orbits are equally useful for all missions. The number of objects residing in Earth orbits is now at an all-time high, with most new objects introduced into orbits at altitudes of between 400 and 700 kilometers above sea level. Millions of pieces of debris in Earth orbits pose a threat to continuing space operations. For instance, the final U.S. space shuttle missions faced 1-in-300 odds of losing a space vehicle or crew member to orbital debris or micrometeoroid impacts.¶ Collisions with fragments of orbital litter as small as a few millimeters across can ruin satellites and end missions. Current technologies cannot track all of these tiny pieces of debris, leaving space assets at the mercy of undetectable, untraceable, and unpredictable pieces of space junk. Some researchers have determined that the debris population in low Earth orbit is already self-sustaining, meaning that collisions between space objects will produce debris more rapidly than natural forces, like atmospheric drag, can remove it from orbit.¶ States—namely the United States, Russia, China, and India—have exacerbated this debris accumulation trend by testing kinetic anti-satellite capabilities or otherwise purposefully fragmenting their satellites in orbit. These states, along with the rest of the multilateral disarmament community, are currently at an impasse on establishing future space governance mechanisms that can address the debris issue. A portion of this impasse may be attributable to disparate views of the nature of outer space in the international context. Establishing a clear view among negotiating parties that Earth orbits should be treated as a great commons would establish a basis for future agreements that reduce debris-related risks.¶ Beyond debris-generating, kinetic anti-satellite weapons tests, revolutionary operating concepts challenge existing space traffic management practices. For instance, commercial ventures are planning networks of thousands of satellites to provide low-latency connectivity on Earth and deploying them by the dozens. States are following this trend. Some are considering transitioning away from using single (or few) exquisite assets in higher orbits and toward using many satellites in low Earth orbits. These new operational concepts could lead to an increase in collision risks.¶ Without new governance agreements, problems related to debris, heavy orbital traffic, and harmful interference will only intensify. Debris in higher orbits can persist for a century or more. The costs of adapting to increasingly polluted orbits would be immense, and the opportunity costs would be even higher. For instance, all else being equal, hardening satellites against collisions increases their mass and volume, in turn raising launch costs per satellite. These costs, rooted in a failure to govern space as a commons, will be borne by all space actors, including emerging states and commercial entities.¶ EXISTING FORMS OF SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ A well-designed governance system, founded on a widespread understanding of Earth orbits as a great commons, could temper these risks. Currently, space is not wholly unregulated, but existing regulations are limited both in scope and implementation. Many operators pledge to follow national regulations and international guidelines, but decentralized accountability mechanisms limit enforcement. These guidelines also do not cover the full range of potentially risky behaviors in space. For example, while some space operators can maneuver satellites to avoid collisions, there are no compulsory rules or standards on who has the right of way.¶ At the interstate level, seminal multilateral agreements provide some more narrow guidance on what is and is not acceptable in space. Most famously, the Outer Space Treaty affirms that outer space "shall be free for exploration and use by all states without discrimination of any kind" and that "there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies." Similar concepts of Earth orbits being a great commons arise in subsequent international texts. Agreements like the Liability Convention impose fault-based liability for debris-related collisions in space, but it is difficult to prove fault in this regime in part because satellite owners and operators have yet to codify a standard of care in space, and thus the regime does not clearly disincentivize debris creation in orbit. Other rules of behavior in Earth orbits have been more successful in reducing harmful interference between satellite operations, but even these efforts are limited in scope.¶ States have acceded to supranational regulations of the most limited (and thus most valuable) Earth orbits. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) coordinates, but does not authorize, satellite deployments and operations in geosynchronous orbits and manages radiofrequency spectrum assignments in other regions of space to reduce interference between satellites. These coordination activities are underpinned by the ITU’s constitution, which reminds states "that radio frequencies and any associate orbits . . . are limited natural resources," indicating a commons-based approach to governing the radiofrequency spectrum. However, the union’s processes are still adapting to new operational realities in low Earth orbit, and these rules were never designed to address issues like debris.
Current law governing space bans state appropriation, BUT ALLOWS private appropriation. A true global commons regime would require a form of democratic governance that ensures the equitable use of space resources and overcomes the expansion of neoliberal capitalism into outer space.
Dardot 18 ~Pierre Dardot, "What democracy for the global commons?," The Commons and a New Global Governance, ed. Samuel Cogolati and Jan Wouters (2018). https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/58613276/What'Democracy'-'Dardot'Leuwen'2018.pdf?1552469271=andresponse-content-disposition=inline3B+filename3DWhat'democracy'for'the'global'commons.pdfandExpires=1642726034andSignature=YJi8AG6~~Y—-mP0qsop4i3t~Z5bVLtQYwuDtUdXm6sdKaYwCJFFzQOL-OiY9nIH~JZsophnChwMlUMSGOCDVh7NhHmUonD28k9fU9PrfN2nYTNV2x8XnvoK2KtelSRvRyWN78eA7uC1isTAf1pO5~abPS9XQnORhjp9nPXjpIuBqLrrJhIUCKNjEorJ0u1h63DxkORBKVZfFh-TawG~PS~WdamGNqfljxjaP1G5bG-hUh1aNw0CuXhnqdd8yeH0-uT7iXVNu8cDl2zOtobIiAmD0SBKxjUXP8SYLkvNO0BETnpIzetK7gW8yksHtYjt-WasarhkMQpHeNwvJOY8QeA''andKey-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA~ CT Using ‘commons’ as a noun, thus, implies a methodological break with this reification of common things, as well as with the logic underlying the classification of goods in economic theory. A ‘commons’ is first and foremost an institutional affair and, more specifically, an institutional space defined by collectively developed practical rules. What is most important is the dimension of instituting the activity, and not the technical characteristics of things and goods. Here lies the essential difference between common goods and the common(s). We must specify, therefore, that any commons, insofar as it is instituted as such, is a good in an ethical and political sense. By contrast, any good that is capable of being purchased and sold, is not in itself a commons. This means that a commons is a good only under the condition that it is not a possession or an acquisition. In other words, once it is instituted, a commons is inalienable and inappropriable. It creates a space within which use prevails over ownership. It is, thus, not a resource in itself – even when it is related to one. In this way we understand a commons to be the active link between an object, a place, a natural resource (for example, a waterfall or a forest), or something artificial (for example, a theatre or a square) and the collective activity of those who take charge of it, preserve it, maintain it and take care of it. This activity is not external to the commons, but instead inherent in it. If we take this to be the definition of every common, then a third implication is that a common, regardless of its specific designation, requires self-government or democratic government. The very act of establishing a common is in and of itself a democratic act. The act of governing a common is nothing more than the continuation of the democratic act; it is thus a sort of continuation of the institution. It consists of reviving this institution by critically assessing its collective rules, whenever the situation demands it. As such, the governance of the common can only proceed from the principle of democracy – the non-democratic governance of a common would threaten, in the short-term, the very existence of this common. I call this the principle of the common, this time in the singular form. For that purpose, I refer to the Latin etymology of this word: the common, or ‘cum-munus’, is the co-obligation that results from co-participation in the same activity. This co-obligation cannot proceed from the simple fact of belonging. Democracy is, in essence, co-participation in public affairs. The Occupy movement (for example, the anti-austerity movement in Spain, also referred to as the 15-M Movement or the Indignados, or the wave of protests in 2013 to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Gezi Park) brought with it a strong anti-oligarchic critique of contemporary political representation, advocating for ‘real democracy’. Most notable is that this democratic requirement is strongly tied to ecological claims based on preserving the ‘commons’ (urban spaces in particular) against any sort of private or state enclosure. It then becomes evident that the commons (in the plural) cannot but be established or governed but by the implementation of the principle of the common (in the singular), which is to say, democracy. To sum up, common use requires self-government. Yet these examples would seem to speak in favour of the establishment of a local democracy, confined within specific geographic limits (for example, a neighbourhood or a city). Aristotle argued for a similar sort of constraint, pointing that beyond a certain number, citizens could no longer know each other. This capacity to mutually engage with one another was, according to him, an important condition for the exercise of democracy. Thus emerges a challenge I will here try to tackle: what sort of democracy is required for commons which are not local, but global in nature – global commons? My thesis is that this democracy can only be global. It remains to be seen what this sort of global democracy should look like. CURRENT PARADIGMS TO DEAL WITH THE UNLIMITED COSMOCAPITALISM With neoliberal capitalism we have come to know a singular historical phenomenon, which I will refer to as ‘cosmocapitalism’. How can this be understood? Cosmocapitalism is not merely a geographical or spatial extension of capitalism, since this extension appeared along with the birth of capitalism. It represents capitalism’s tendency to become universal. By this, I mean that capital tends to submit all aspects of human existence, even those most intimate and subjective, along with the natural world, to the market’s logic, which is nothing more than the logic of competition. The terms ‘world’ and ‘cosmos’ do not describe the planet in a physical sense, or even the global population, but rather the political framework, with its institutional and normative qualities whereby the expansion of the market’s logic becomes possible. Max Weber already described the idea of an immense cosmos which imposes its economic activity on the individual caught within the market’s grasp (Weber, 2002). Today, this cosmos has grown beyond the single economic sphere to include the social sphere. 3.1 Humanity’s Common Heritage Paradigm and the Appropriation of Space A first example will allow us to highlight this logic of limitlessness by examining the delegation of tasks between the state and private enterprises. On 25 November 2015, just a few days before the opening of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris, Barack Obama passed law H.R.2262, which provided authorization for private American companies to use natural resources from outer space (US Congress, 2015). As we know, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty established the legal status of outer space in the following manner (United Nations, 1967). Article 1 acknowledged that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, implying free and equal access without discrimination of any kind. Article 2 established that ‘Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means’. These two conditions, equal access for all and non-ownership, are strictly complementary and both refer to subjects recognized by international law, that is to say, the states: ‘national appropriation’ is state ownership and non-appropriation refers to non-appropriation by states only. It is precisely from this ambiguity that the law (US Congress, 2015) was cleverly enacted on 25 November 2015. Its name is already quite self-evident: US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. In a nutshell, the Act gives any United States (US) citizen involved in commercial exploration and exploitation of an asteroid or space resource, the right to own, possess, transport, use, and sell this resource provided it is in accordance with the applicable legislation. This amounts to giving American companies a property right over space resources in due form (Calimaq, 2015). Yet, the law passed by Congress seems to pretend the contrary, as it provides a so-called ‘Disclaimer of Extraterritorial Sovereignty’ in Section 3 of the Act (US Congress, 2015) By the enactment of this Act, the United States– Exercises its jurisdiction over United States citizens and vessels, and foreign persons and vessels otherwise subject to its jurisdiction, in the exercise of the high seas freedom to engage in exploration for, and commercial recovery of, hard mineral resources of the deep seabed in accordance with generally accepted principles of international law recognized by the United States; but Does not thereby assert sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any areas or resources in the deep seabed. We can clearly see how this law circumvents the prohibition of national appropriation articulated by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty: the prohibition forbids states themselves from ‘national appropriation by claim of sovereignty’, but it does not prevent a private company from exploring or exploiting space resources for commercial purposes. It goes without saying that the enactment of this law was very much applauded by private companies planning to embark on asteroid mining. What is remarkable about this law is that it confirms the international commitment of the US not to assert sovereignty over any space resource, while simultaneously conferring private companies the right to appropriate resources therein without any restriction. Under the Outer Space Treaty, the legal status of the ‘common things’ (res communes), under which certain resources are known to be common by nature (as in Roman law), is not formally addressed. Under Article I of the Outer Space Treaty, the outer space is not even declared to be the ‘common heritage of mankind’, but simply the ‘province of all mankind’ (United Nations, 1967). The notion of ‘common heritage’ was only explicitly introduced in 1967 to deal with the legal status of the deep seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (United Nations General Assembly, 1967). Regardless of the ambiguity of this notion, particularly regarding the holder of such heritage, the idea of ‘heritage’ implies a double duty to both preserve and transmit it. However, international law limits the right of use for states only, as they alone are faced with the prohibition of appropriation. We are, therefore, presented with a way of extrapolating the res communes category inherited from Roman law, insofar as non-appropriation and common use are present, but subordinate to the goodwill of the states. Thus, we are faced with a cheap if not unfinished version of a ‘common’, which is entrusted to states, and limits state sovereignty without even calling it into question. With the Competitiveness Act (US Congress, 2015), we are faced with an act of state sovereignty that manages to circumvent the prohibition of appropriation by a sovereign state without formally violating it. This represents a sort of ‘delegation’ under which the state, on the one hand, grants its citizens a legal title that it denies to itself, on the other, it does so in order to better guarantee it to those to whom it has been delegated. The imperium (state sovereignty) gives full licence for all candidates to the dominium, to privately control and appropriate any resources they are able to seize: statutory law enforces beforehand the power that technology provides. Beyond this collusion between the state and private companies, what emerges here is the powerful homology between state and private ownership: imperium and dominium appear to be based on two forms of a similar logic of ownership, which affirm one another. The primary challenge facing the heritage of mankind paradigm is that it does not fundamentally break with interstate logic and, as such, leaves leeway for private appropriation. 3.2 The Global Public Goods Paradigm and the Value of Biodiversity A second example allows us to unveil the same neoliberal capitalist logic at work within the realm of the destruction of the biosphere. At the end of the 1980s, with the momentum of the pollution rights initiated by Reagan, George H. W. Bush encouraged the expansion of the market endorsing the ‘No Net Loss’ goal (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: p. 45). The seemingly small adjective ‘net’ carries with it a heavy connotation. It does not mean that we do not have the right to destroy biodiversity but rather, the opposite. Indeed, under the ‘No Net Loss’ principle, we have the right to destroy biodiversity as long as we replace whatever has been destroyed elsewhere. In other words, damages resulting from human activities must be balanced by at least equivalent gains. For example, we have the right to destroy ten acres of forest in one area, as long as we plant ten acres of trees elsewhere, within the next 30 years, because once the new trees have grown, it will not make any difference. In market lingo, this is referred to as ‘biodiversity offsetting’. The neoliberal argument is the same and is now well-established – we have failed to obtain our reduction goals, so we must adapt our strategy by trying new financial mechanisms, which are much more effective than the inefficient laws and regulations. That these so-called ‘laws and regulations’ have failed because they have bet on the market must be hidden. It is always the same explanation – if we failed, it is not because we conceded to the market, but rather the opposite, because we did not sufficiently take advantage of it. What is the relationship between this logic of compensation and actual biodiversity, which is made up of the interaction between complex systems, and not of detachable and interchangeable parts? A good example comes from the Brazilian company Vale, which sought to present eucalyptus plantations as a form of reforestation of the Amazon rainforest whose destruction it has actively contributed to. The logic of this compensation can be understood as equivalency logic in its most literal sense. That is, it assumes that there is a commensurability between the Amazon rainforest and eucalyptus plantations, which would affirm their equal value. This type of reasoning is completely indifferent to the sort of relationship a tree has with the soil: the fact that the eucalyptus, which originated from Australia, actually dries up the Amazonian soil, is not at all taken into consideration (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: pp. 94–5). As Marx so aptly described it in the first Volume of his major book Capital (1992), the logic behind market equivalency is at its core a logic of indifference to the qualitative differences that exist between different types of work, and the products that stem from each. What is remarkable here is that we are not referring to the products of human work but instead to living ecosystems. Here we have come to a critical point: the marketing of biodiversity requires that we assign value to something that is not, in fact, a product of work. This argument was reaffirmed by Pavel Sukhdev, a banker who has directed the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 2007: ‘We take advantage of nature because it has value. But we lose it because it is free’ (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: p. 62). Thus, ‘~t~he economy has become the currency of politics’ (sic), we have to learn to understand ‘~t~he economic value of nature’ and express it in a way that is clear to political decision makers. In essence, we must remedy the ‘~i~nvisible economics of nature’ by assigning to it a monetary value or a price. In order to carry out this task we must employ a calculation: in this way, the pollination of trees and flowers by bees constitutes an economically invisible service whose value is estimated at 200 billion dollars, which is almost 8 per cent of the global agricultural production on earth according to Pavel Sukhdev (ibid.: p. 9). The same principle can be applied to pure air or drinking water – the services they render become more and more valuable as they become increasingly rare. Scarcity has always determined value, except that now scarcity represents the services provided by nature. But what exactly does the notion of an economically assessable ‘service’ mean? What vision of nature does it propose and is this conceptualization really new? For a long time, biodiversity was conceived of as a group of resources comprised of several distinct elements (genes, species, habitats and so on), which were capable of being owned, purchased and sold. This conception prevailed in Rio during the Convention on Biological Diversity (United Nations, 1992). But, at the end of the twentieth century, a more dynamic representation emerged which posited that ecosystems should be recognized as the ‘third level of biodiversity’, situated above genes and species (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: pp. 164–166). Now processes and flows take precedence over individual entities and elements. Although we can measure the intrinsic value of the latter, we can only appreciate the value of process and flow in terms of ‘services’. It is, thus, not biodiversity in and of itself which is valuable, but more so the services rendered by the ecosystems that possess value. Hence the notion of ‘ecosystem services’, consisting of streams of natural capital stock which, when combined with human industrial activities, gives way to human welfare (ibid.: pp. 59 and 165). ‘Provisioning services’ (related to ‘resources’: food, wood, grains and so on), ‘regulating services’ (the climate, rainfall, water quality), and ‘cultural services’ (spiritual or recreational value of nature) can be counted among such services. Biobanks sell shares to protect species threatened by deforestation to the very companies who carry out such acts (ibid.: p. 154). Many are unwavering in their belief that the biosphere as a whole should be treated as natural capital. In keeping with this line of thought, the following shift occurs: the biosphere should not enter the commercial sphere merely as a commodity (the logic underlying the sale of timber and industrial capitalism, marketing ‘biological resources’ and patented genes, and so on), but also and most importantly as an asset (that is, within the context of securities eligible for future revenue based on the logic of annuities) (ibid.: p. 166). Thus, we move from the simple commodification of nature, typical of industrial capitalism, which emphasizes producing goods, to neoliberal capitalist financialization and, simultaneously, from the portrayal of nature as a ‘resource’ to its representation as capital generating a ‘flow of services’. How does the theory of GPGs (Kaul et al., 1999) allow us to fight against this trend to financialization? Is GPGs theory not designed, on the contrary, to promote governance of private and state actors? As we know, beyond the criteria relative to the beneficiaries of such goods (the publicum which turns these goods into global goods), this theory distinguishes between three classes of GPGs: global natural goods (for example, ozone layer, climate stability); (ii) goods that constitute man-made heritage (for example, knowledge, cultural heritage, the Internet); and (iii) goods that result from global politics (for example, peace, health, financial stability). While the first class represents natural goods, the other two result from human activity. However, the distinction between these three distinct classes becomes blurred in the case of the negative consequences flowing from poorly managed non-renewable energy. As a result of global policies, global natural goods slide into the third category of GPGs. Moreover, an economistic approach in terms of supply requires that these natural goods are reduced to ‘stock variables’ like the goods of the second category, whereas the goods of the third category are conceived as ‘flow variables’ since a continued effort is required to ensure their potential. But if natural assets are now part of the third category, should we conclude that they have become ‘flow variables’? In any case, the evolution from ‘stock’ to ‘flow’ corresponds precisely with the sort of change that accompanies and legitimizes nature’s financialization. Finally, and most worryingly, the value attributed to biological diversity is estimated by reference to the costs of protecting it. Thus, biological diversity enters the category of public goods that have an ‘intrinsic existence value’ ‘in an effort to grapple with and ultimately define the intrinsic worth of protecting the ~good~’ (ibid.: p. 253). We would be better off articulating that this is not intrinsic at all: biodiversity has no value of its own and is not a good in and of itself; instead, its value is derived from the fact that it is the result of subjective appreciation, which amounts to recognizing that this is a good. We see what can result from the ambiguity surrounding the term ‘good’. But overall this confirms the rejection of the notion of biodiversity’s intrinsic value in favour of the idea that value is assigned by an external party, which expresses in its own way the notion of ‘ecosystem services’. 4. COSMODEMOCRACY Given the logic underlying cosmocapitalism, we must find out a new type of global democracy if we wish to have any chance of halting and reversing it. Such a democracy will be referred to below as cosmodemocracy. It is indeed linked to cosmopolitanism; that is, to the idea of global politics and global citizenship. 4.1 Different Types of Cosmopolitanism 4.1.1 Cosmopolitanism as a project Cosmopolitanism can be defined as the feeling and consciousness of belonging to the same world. It can be expressed in many different ways. It can represent the awareness of living in the same world or sharing the same human condition, the feeling of sharing a common, confined space, and the feeling of being affected by everything that affects another part of humanity. According to Kant’s well-known dictum, ‘a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world’ (Kant, 1977). The awareness of belonging to a shared world has been expressed in noteworthy works of philosophy. This is particularly true of stoicism, within which man is seen as belonging to part of a ‘Universal’ or ‘Upper City’ and whose political city is just a small image. Individuals are then viewed as a citizens of the world, but this citizenship is not at all political. By virtue of its universalism, Christianity was able to modify and extend its tradition through the ‘catholicity’ of the Church. The idea that human rights are not limited to any specific country, but are universal in nature, arose from Christian universalism and found support from various scholars and lawyers, including Anacharsis Cloots, author of Bases constitutionnelles de la République du genre humain (1793). Yet the framework remains one in which the world is assimilated to the nation: the human race becomes the only ruler so that the Universal Republic must identify with the Republic of Mankind and there is only one nation that corresponds with humanity itself. With Kant’s Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay (1795), cosmopolitanism begins to take a new meaning. Kant distinguishes between three overlapping components of public law: municipal or civil law (ius civitatis), which should be a republican constitution; (ii) international law or the law of nations (ius gentium), which provides for the right of states to engage in mutual relations or international law via a federation of free states; and (iii) cosmopolitan law (ius cosmopoliticum). However, cosmopolitan law is intended to guarantee the right of ‘hospitality’ to all individuals – which is a right of access merely to promote trade. In this way, cosmopolitanism restricts the cosmos to the commercial sphere without establishing a genuine political citizenship. 4.1.2 Factual cosmopolitanization What was once only an idea or ideal has become part of how we now live. Cosmopolitanism has become the new reality, both in an objective and subjective sense, and what Ulrich Beck has called ‘banal cosmopolitanism’ (2006: p. 26). This factual cosmopolitanization, borne out of the growth of interdependence and transnationalization of ways of life and cultures, should not be confused with transnational political activities and institutional creations, even if the link between these phenomena seems quite obvious. Factual cosmopolitanization is essential to the world’s inhabitants, albeit to varying degrees. It became extremely important at the turn of the century. With the rise of global risks, it began to haunt our minds, penetrating the banality of everyday life, for example, with respect to food, altering our aesthetic tastes, and changing our approach to interstate relations by giving preference to human rights over sovereignty. It is no longer a matter of assigning positive value to the world’s political organization by imagining what the future might hold. It is rather about establishing and characterizing the multitude of processes that transform everyday life up to the point where they lead to the relativization of national borders. According to Beck, ‘reality itself has become cosmopolitan’ (ibid.: p. 10). With globalization and resistance to the latter, a new era has emerged – that of ‘reflexive modernity’. In order to see, understand, and analyse it, one must abandon the ‘national perspective’ and ‘methodological nationalism’, 4.1.3 Normative and institutional cosmopolitanism What Beck also failed to see is that normative and institutional cosmopolitanism do not flow freely and naturally from factual cosmopolitanization. This is so, firstly, because of the opposition of forces that have no interest in seeing their powers being eroded. Second, and most importantly, because a strictly empirical conceptualization of factual cosmopolitanization runs the risk of overlooking immediately what is generated from internal relations of domination in national and local settings, and what is beyond local level democratic control. Now, because the local and national spheres are losing their ‘naturalness’, for those who live in those areas, the effects of globalization imply that the normative and institutional issues arise with urgency in a political form that is antagonistic. Factual cosmopolitanization is no longer a ‘happy globalization’, but for many the dispossession of their destiny. We must give credit to Karl Renner, Austrian Social Democrat and Austro-Marxist, for encouraging the reflection on the switch between a de facto internationalism to an institutionalized internationalism (Renner, 1998). This de facto internationalism, comprised of economic, social and cultural forms of internationalization, demonstrates how the world’s legal fabric extends beyond the mere sum of nations. In the same way that the nation is the product of a historical development which culminates in its legal capacity at the end of the eighteenth century, the ‘internation’, to use Mauss’ term, will inevitably find its legal form from a substrate of facts that is poorly or not at all seen, but as such, represents a legal duty. The term ‘international’ should not be taken at face value, as it represents much more than international relations between states. Indeed, it involves the way in which the world is constructed, legally and politically, in its post-Westphalian organization. According to Mauss, the enemy is state sovereignty, as it represents an obstacle to real human interests. We are moving towards a world order that will no longer be limited by the coexistence of sovereign nation states, what Renner calls the ‘institutional Oecumene’. The creation of the League of Nations in 1920 gave way to a new era, as the ‘community of nations’ was granted legal standing above the states. Renner claims that, as a result of the establishment of the League, a ‘supra-State international law’ appeared in order to guarantee an infra-state national law, which itself protects minorities. However, as Renner argues, this step remained constrained by the desire to freeze the acquired positions after the First World War. We know that this is also exactly what happened in 1945 with the creation of the United Nations: as demonstrated recently during the COP 21, the most glaring contradiction still exists between the interstate logic of a group of sovereign states, and the need for a global community which undermines the sovereignty of each state in order to respect higher principles which cater to the interests of humanity. Hence Renner’s proposal in 1937: delegates representing ‘partial international interests’ (capital, labour, culture and so on) should be members of the League of Nations Council. It is under this condition that international interests would be taken into account, since the representatives in question would not be able to mandate all issues nationally. The question, then, is how to make this global human community exist as such. We can envision this as Renner did when describing a global parliament or, more specifically, a second chamber of representatives in which the people themselves articulate and make decisions about their economic structure and social values, along with their present grievances and hopes for the future (Renner, 1998: p. 74). Yet it is evident that the creation of a supranational chamber does not respond to the needs of those who represent ‘partial international interests’. Indeed, the parliamentary system of representation, with all its inherent vices, is simply replicated on a global scale. In order to overcome the interstate’s limitations, we must decide to make the leap from internationalism and cosmopolitanism to cosmopolitics; that is, to a political organization of humanity 4.2 Cosmopolitics The two paradigms discussed above suffer from a crippling limitation – that of humanity’s common heritage which subjects the ‘common things’ to the interstate logic, and that of GPGs, which leave the latter to the governance of private and state actors. Still, progress has been made in the establishment of humankind law. But, even assuming a legal status was assigned to humanity, this would not suffice, and neither would a cosmopolitan consciousness, in reaching cosmopolitan institutions. How do we overcome the double impasse imposed by the interstate and global private law, while paving the way for humanity’s common form of political activity; which is to say, a real democracy for humanity? I would like to highlight two points which I feel are complementary. The first relates to the institutional architecture of a global democracy and the second concerns the political activity of world citizens. The first requires, above all, a political imagination, and the second assumes that we extend the observation of collective practices and experimentations already underway. 4.2.1 The dual federation of the commons In order to introduce the first point, we must return to our discussion of the commons. Early on in this chapter, we established that the commons are institutional matters to the extent that they determine the rules of common use. In this sense, the commons emerge from what we might legally refer to as the ‘public’, not only in the orthodox economics sense of the collective nature of ‘public goods’, but also in terms of the public in opposition to the private. It is important to note that this public sui generis is non-state public. What exactly does this mean? The state’s public aims to ensure universal access to services but it does so by allowing state administration to monopolize the management of these services, thereby excluding users reduced to mere consumer status. The non-state public of the commons guarantees universal access via user participation in this management. Note that non-state does not mean anti-state, but rather, autonomous from the state. But what are we to make of the state itself? Under what conditions can it itself become a common? And how can we conceptualize its articulation to what belongs to the infra- and supra-state levels? Moreover, how can the different types of commons be organized among themselves? The magnitude of these questions led us to imagine a political system, that of non-centred federalism, which was inspired by Proudhon (1863). Indeed, he designed a dual federation of social and economic organizations, representing the municipalities as well as the production units and working companies, both of which should be governed by the principle of democracy. In a similar way, we can distinguish, on the one hand, the social-economic commons (common of river, common of forest, seed bank, production unit and so on) independently constituted of territoriality and administrative borders and, on the other hand, political commons formed through the process of increasingly integrating territories (municipalities, regions, states, international groupings of states). Yet, in all of this we are neither statists nor anarchists. We are even reluctant to consider a single global government or a single world state, which would imply a centralized form of authority that is incompatible with the democracy required by the institution of the commons. We are supporters of a polyarchic system, which should not be understood as ‘government of the many’ but instead as ‘many governments’ democratically coordinated across the world, which naturally implies a systematic intersection of different types of government, state and non-state, politics, and socio-economics. 4.2.2 Global citizenship These ‘demo-cosmopolitan’ systems will not come from above and they will not emerge from interstate decisions or contractual agreements between private actors. Historically, the exercise of constructive activist citizenship has been an important precursor to the creation of new political institutions. Today, we observe the elements of an authentic political citizenship, which is diverse, decentred and transnational at the same time. This is exemplified by anti-globalization and social movements, in the missions of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International, in the commitment of certain ecological associations to the COP 21, and via initiatives supporting public aid for migrants, and so on. This is not a citizenship that is expected to gain legal recognition, status, rights or duties as part of a state, but instead one that is called to act, engaging in transnational actions by those Beck calls ‘global public interest entrepreneurs’ (2006). We could also refer to them as global commons actors. This non-state and non-statutory citizenship must be thought of in terms of practices aimed at maintaining or acquiring rights rather than formally granting them. Only such transnational citizenship-in-action can give full meaning to the idea of cosmopolitics: politics for the world, as long as the ‘world’ implies what resonates in the Latin term mundus, namely, not the Earth as a planet and not the totality of individuals living on Earth but instead, the living connection between the individuals inhabiting in and the Earth itself. In this sense, the anti-globalization slogan ‘the world is not for sale’ is more meaningful than it might seem at first sight: the world, in itself, is not a ‘thing’ that we can own; it must be recognized as inappropriable and instituted as a common. 5. Conclusion To conclude, instituting the world as a common cannot be understood as an extension of the nation-state or city-state models at the global level. The democracy of the global commons is irreducible to a mere change of scale. Instead, it requires a genuine collective political invention, which is based on the multiplication of self-government at all levels. What is at stake here is the confrontation between two diametrically opposed logics: whereas the logic of the commons is fundamentally plural, polymorphic, non-centred in nature, the logic of state sovereignty as it was constructed in the West is intrinsically linked to an indivisible and absolute centre of power. The solution is not for several sovereignties to overlap on the same territory, as this would be incompatible with the very notion of sovereignty, but for several types of self-governments to limit each other’s power reciprocally.
Development of space resources is still possible with a commons model. Property rights are not necessary. Existing models governing commons encourage responsible development, numerous examples prove.
Saletta Sterling and Orrman-Rossiter 18 ~Sterling Saletta, Morgan; Orrman-Rossiter, Kevin (2018). Can space mining benefit all of humanity?: The resource fund and citizen's dividend model of Alaska, the ‘last frontier’. Space Policy, (), S0265964616300704–. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.02.002~ CT The Outer Space Treaty (OST) came into force in 1967 and, having been ratified by all the major space faring governments as well as some 100 other nations, the Outer Space Treaty serves as the basis for international space law, the current corpus juris spatialis. The treaty declares the exploration and use of outer space shall be for, "the benefit and in the interests of all countries ~27~" and that outer space, as mentioned previously, "shall be the province of all mankind ~27~". With the increased commercialization of space, and the entrance of new actors, both national and private, the OST has come under increased scrutiny, with calls to expand, modify, and even to abrogate it ~35,36~. Issues surrounding the mining of celestial bodies have received particular attention and debate ~37~. Of particular concern is the matter of exploitation licences and property rights ~38~. The OST expressly forbids the "national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by other means" ~27~ of outer space and celestial bodies. This is frequently interpreted to mean that the OST denies private property claims in outer space, some authors and individuals ~39–41~ have argued that appropriation by non-nationalentities is allowed. The Outer Space Treaty, and its terrestrial analogues, UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and the Antarctica Treaty System (ATS) are ‘global commons regimes', though the terminology governing these commons differs and juridical concepts such as "common heritage of humanity" found in UNCLOS (and the Moon Treaty of 1979) and the "common province of mankind" found in the Outer Space Treaty have been interpreted in various manners. Due in part to these varying wordings, interpretations and attendant uncertainties, the need for a more comprehensive framework governing the environmental, ethical, and commercial aspects of space exploration, exploitation and colonization has been highlighted by many authors ~30,33,34~. Some advocates for the commercial exploitation of space claim that the absence of property rights is a barrier to such ventures, and in particular to the mining of celestial bodies such as the Moon or near earth asteroids ~35~. Some have gone so far as to suggest an abrogation of the OST in favor of a treaty that allows something like fee-simple ownership and what might best be called a California gold rush approach to outer space resource exploitation ~36–38~. Advocates of this approach would give something like fee-simple ownership of outer space resources on a ‘first in time, first in right’ basis with no clear licensing regime for such activities ~39~. In recent US law, Title IV of H.R. 2262- the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, grants ownership of asteroid resources to entities obtaining them but attempts to walk a fine line between this approach and international treaty obligations. It does not grant ownership of asteroid themselves, and explicitly states that resource exploitation must be in accordance with federal laws and existing treaty obligations, i.e. the OST ~40~. How such eventual exploitation occurs, and under what precise national and international regulatory and licensing regimes, is thus still a matter for the future to decide. On the other hand, it has also been suggested that modifications and additions to the OST based on terrestrial models will provide sufficient guarantee of the right to make profits from the exploitation of outer space resources. Henry Hertzfeld and Frans von der Dunk argue the current regime does not pose a problem for exploitation rights and that terrestrial models would allow private ventures the right to reasonable returns on investment from resource exploitation in space ~41~. Furthermore, in addition to important, and possibly irreconcilable, differences between a California gold rush style approach and the OST ~42~, arguments suggesting fee-simple or similar ownership is necessary for profitable private outer space resource exploitation simply do not stand in the face of contrary evidence from numerous terrestrial examples. These include offshore oil drilling, mining, timber and grazing operations in the United States and internationally which are regularly and profitably undertaken without ownership ~43~. Thus P. M. Sterns and L. I. Tennen argue that the current international regime does provide an adequate framework for commercial development in space, that fee-simple ownership is unnecessary and: "those who advocate the renunciation and abandonment of the nonappropriation principle are either seeking to increase their own bottom line by disingenuous and deceptive constructs, or lack an appropriate appreciation and respect for international processes ~~44~, p. 2439~". Thus, claims that a lack of private property rights in outer space will be a deterrent to commercial resource exploitation ventures in space do not reflect an adequate reflection and analysis of the manner in which current terrestrial practices might be extended into outer space without abrogating the current treaty regime. Nor would a system based on fee simple ownership be likely to tangibly benefit more than a small proportion of the world's population. Instead, the eventual wealth from exploiting celestial bodies would be concentrated in the hands of a few, exacerbating rather than alleviating existing problems for humanity and global sustainable development. The Outer Space Treaty has provided an effective legal framework for the exploration of outer space for over 50 years. Based on the history of treaty regimes governing other international spaces, UNCLOS and the ATS, it seems likely that, in future, additional protocols and agreements will be layered onto the OST and that calls to abrogate and to negotiate a wholly new treaty system are unlikely to succeed. While low participation in the Moon Agreement, also known as the Moon Treaty of 1979, which has not been ratified by either the United States, Russia, or China, has raised questions of legitimacy, it has recently been argued that the Moon Treaty may receive renewed interest in the international community. René Lefeber argues that, far from stifling commercial ventures, the Moon Agreement "provides the best available option for mankind, states and industry to develop space mineral resources in a harmonious way ~~5~, p. 47~", and that, as resource exploitation in outer space now seems likely, the need to elaborate an international regime to prevent conflict over resources may bring other parties to ratify, accede to, or sign the treaty. Ultimately, some form of international governance of outer space as a global commons ~45~ building on the OST and the current corpus juris spatialis seems both more likely and more desirable than an abrogation of the OST and its replacement with an entirely new treaty regime. Thus, an international regime built upon this existing regime will need to be constructed which takes a balanced approach to space exploration, development and exploitation and which encourages entrepreneurial development but also moves beyond vague utopian platitudes to real and concrete benefits for all of humanity.
Underview
(A) Compound Probability - Multiplied probabilities of long link chains have negligible net probabilities. This is the slippery slope fallacy.
(B) Complexity – the DA presents a simplistic and deterministic narrative that fails to account for the myriad confounding factors that can disrupt or reverse the link chain of the DA. The most important of these is the probability that people will recognize the dangerous path they’re on and change course, e.g. leaders backing down during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
(C) Decision Gridlock – Every course of action or inaction has a negligible possibility of causing extinction. This makes it impossible to prioritize averting existential risk over all else because such risk is unavoidable. We have no choice but to prioritize REALISTIC probabilities.
Reform makes revolution more likely. Rejecting it condescendingly asserts the possibility of radical change is better than the certainty of real improvement.
Delgado ’87 - Delgado, Richard ~teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law. He has written and co-authored numerous articles and books~, "The Ethereal Scholar: Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want?", Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review, 1987 Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental change, they argue, merely postpones the wholesale reformation that must occur to create a decent society.38 Even worse, an unfair social system survives by using piecemeal reform to disguise and legitimize oppression. 39 Those who control the system weaken resistance by pointing to the occasional concession to, or periodic court victory of, a black plaintiff or worker as evidence that the system is fair and just.40 In fact, Crits believe that teaching the common law or using the case method in law school is a disguised means of preaching incrementalism and thereby maintaining the current power structure.41 To avoid this, CLS scholars urge law professors to abandon the case method, give up the effort to find rationality and order in the case law, and teach in an unabashedly political fashion. 42 The CLS critique of piecemeal reform is familiar, imperialistic and wrong. Minorities know from bitter experience that occasional court victories do not mean the Promised Land is at hand.43 The critique is imperialistic in that it tells minorities and other oppressed peoples how they should interpret events affecting them.44 A court order directing a housing authority to disburse funds for heating in subsidized housing may postpone the revolution, or it may not. In the meantime, the order keeps a number of poor families warm. This may mean more to them than it does to a comfortable academic working in a warm office. It smacks of paternalism to assert that the possibility of revolution later outweighs the certainty of heat now, unless there is evidence for that possibility. The Crits do not offer such evidence. Indeed, some incremental changes may bring revolutionary changes closer, not push them further away. Not all small reforms induce complacency; some may whet the appetite for further combat. The welfare family may hold a tenants' union meeting in their heated living room. CLS scholars' critique of piecemeal reform often misses these possibilities, and neglects the question of whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.
Adopt a hybridizing strategy - exploiting contradictions in hegemonic discourse maintains critical distance while effectively challenging the state. Kapoor ‘08
Kapoor, 2008 (Ilan, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, "The Postcolonial Politics of Development," p. 138-139) There are perhaps several other social movement campaigns that could be cited as examples of a ‘hybridizing strategy’.5 But what emerges as important from the Chipko and NBA campaigns is the way in which they treat laws and policies, institutional practices, and ideological apparatuses as deconstructible. That is, they refuse to take dominant authority at face value, and proceed to reveal its contingencies. Sometimes, they expose what the hegemon is trying to disavow or hide (exclusion of affected communities in project design and implementation, faulty information gathering and dissemination). Sometimes, they problematize dominant or naturalized truths (‘development = unlimited economic growth = capitalism’, ‘big is better’, ‘technology can save the environment’). In either case, by contesting, publicizing, and politicizing accepted or hidden truths, they hybridize power, challenging its smugness and triumphalism, revealing its impurities. They show power to be, literally and figuratively, a bastard. While speaking truth to power, a hybridizing strategy also exploits the instabilities of power. In part, this involves showing up and taking advantage of the equivocations of power — conflicting laws, contradictory policies, unfulfilled promises. A lot has to do here with publicly shaming the hegemon, forcing it to remedy injustices and live up to stated commitments in a more accountable and transparent manner. And, in part, this involves nurturing or manipulating the splits and strains within institutions. Such maneuvering can take the form of cultivating allies, forging alliances, or throwing doubt on prevailing orthodoxy. Note, lastly, the way in which a hybridizing strategy works with the dominant discourse. This reflects the negotiative aspect of Bhabha’s performativity. The strategy may outwit the hegemon, but it does so from the interstices of the hegemony. The master may be paralyzed, but his paralysis is induced using his own poison/medicine. It is for this reason that cultivating allies in the adversarial camp is possible: when you speak their language and appeal to their own ethical horizons, you are building a modicum of common ground. It is for this reason also that the master cannot easily dismiss or crush you. Observing his rules and playing his game makes it difficult for him not to take you seriously or grant you a certain legitimacy. The use of non-violent tactics may be crucial in this regard: state repression is easily justified against violent adversaries, but it is vulnerable to public criticism when used against non-violence. Thus, the fact that Chipko and the NBA deployed civil disobedience — pioneered, it must be pointed out, by the ‘father of the nation’ (i.e. Gandhi) — made it difficult for the state to quash them or deflect their claims.
2/6/22
JF - Space Commons AC v5
Tournament: Emory | Round: 1 | Opponent: Cardinal Gibbons RS | Judge: Alex Berry My cites aren't working well, so feel free to check open source if it's confusing.
AC
====Ambiguities in the OST that allow private appropriation have kicked off a race to develop space, setting the stage for a debris crisis and the domination of space by unaccountable billionaires. Current laws fail due to lax rules and forum shopping.==== Dovey 21 ~Ceridwen Dovey, "Space Exploration At What Price?," Readers Digest Asia Pacific, 5/1/21. https://www.pressreader.com/australia/readers-digest-asia-pacific/20210501/281487869174485~~ CT One environmental risk all stakeholders agree on is that posed by space debris. There’s
AND
questioned why there’d been no proper consultation with the scientific community before launch.
Advantage 1: Space Debris
Increasing space debris levels inevitably set off a chain of collisions.
away, meaning that there is still time to develop a solution.52
Collisions make orbit unusable, causing nuclear war, mass starvation, and economic destruction.
Les Johnson 13, Deputy Manager for NASA's Advanced Concepts Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Co-Investigator for the JAXA T-Rex Space Tether Experiment and PI of NASA's ProSEDS Experiment, Master's Degree in Physics from Vanderbilt University, Popular Science Writer, and NASA Technologist, Frequent Contributor to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Sodety and Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Space Society, the World Future Society, and MENSA, Sky Alert!: When Satellites Fail, p. 9-12 ~language modified~ Whatever the initial cause, the result may be the same. A satellite destroyed
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, our military advantage over potential adversaries would be dramatically reduced or eliminated.
Advantage 2: Corporate Colonialism
Tech-billionaires advance a vision of private space colonization as a source of infinite resources to cure society’s ills. This rationalizes unrestrained consumption and replicates the logic of imperialism.
Mccormick 21 ~Ted McCormick writes about the history of science, empire, and economic thought. He has a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and teaches at Concordia University in Montreal. "The billionaire space race reflects a colonial mindset that fails to imagine a different world". 8-15-2021. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-billionaire-space-race-reflects-a-colonial-mindset-that-fails-to-imagine-a-different-world-165235. Accessed 12-15-2021; marlborough JH~ It was a time of political uncertainty, cultural conflict and social change. Private
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in defiance of all limits. We are struggling with these consequences today.
If only wealthy elites can tap the vast resources of outer space, we lock in a permanent and unconscionable inequality. Private space colonization amounts to unchecked exploitation and authoritarian corporate control of future settlements. Spencer ‘17
, our rallying cry should be this: Keep the red planet red!
This private expansion into space results in corporate colonization of planets that undermines the interests of the rest of humanity. Spencer ’17
Spencer, Keith A. ~senior editor at Salon~"Against Mars-a-Lago: Why SpaceX's Mars Colonization Plan Should Terrify You." Salon, Salon.com, Oct. 8 2017, https://www.salon.com/2017/10/08/against-mars-a-lago-why-spacexs-mars-colonization-plan-should-terrify-you/. When CEO Elon Musk announced last month that his aerospace company SpaceX would be sending cargo missions to Mars by 2022 — the first step in his tourism-driven colonization plan — a small cheer went up among space and science enthusiasts. Writing in the New York Post, Stephen Carter called Musk’s vision "inspiring," a salve for politically contentious times. "Our species has turned its vision inward; our image of human possibility has grown cramped and pessimistic," Carter wrote: "We dream less of reaching the stars than of winning the next election; less of maturing as a species than of shunning those who are different; less of the blessings of an advanced technological tomorrow than of an apocalyptic future marked by a desperate struggle to survive. Maybe a focus on the possibility of reaching our nearest planetary neighbor will help change all that." The Post editorial reflected a growing media consensus that humankind’s ultimate destiny is the colonization of the solar system — yet on a private basis. American government leaders generally agree with this vision. Obama egged on the privatization of NASA by legislating a policy shift to private commercial spaceflight, awarding government contracts to private companies like SpaceX to shuttle supplies to the International Space Station. "Governments can develop new technology and do some of the exciting early exploration but in the long run it's the private sector that finds ways to make profit, finds ways to expand humanity," said Dr. S. Pete Worden, the director of the NASA Ames Research lab, in 2012. And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote of his ambitions to bring American-style capitalism to the stars: "In the years to come, American industry must be the first to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-Earth orbit, to expand the sphere of the economy beyond this blue marble," Pence wrote. One wonders if these luminaries know their history. There has been no instance in which a private corporation became a colonizing power that did not end badly for everyone besides the shareholders. The East India Company is perhaps the finest portent of Musk’s Martian ambitions. In 1765, the East India Company forced the Mughal emperor to sign a legal agreement that would essentially permit their company to become the de facto rulers of Bengal. The East India Company then collected taxes and used its private army, which was over 200,000 strong by the early 19th century, to repress those who got in the way of its profit margins. "It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath," writes William Dalrymple in the Guardian. "It almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history." The East India Company came to colonize much of the Indian subcontinent. In the modern era, an era in which the right of corporations to do what they want, unencumbered, has become a sacrosanct right in the eyes of many politicians, the lessons of the East India Company seem to have been all but forgotten. As Dalrymple writes: Democracy as we know it was considered an advance over feudalism because of the power that it gave the commoners to share in collective governance. To privately colonize a nation, much less a planet, means ceding governance and control back to corporations whose interest is not ours, and indeed, is always at odds with workers and residents — particularly in a resource-limited environment like a spaceship or the red planet. Even if, as Musk suggests, a private foundation is put in charge of running the show on Mars, their interests will inherently be at odds with the workers and employees involved. After all, a private foundation is not a democracy; and as major philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation illustrate, often do the bidding of their rich donors, and take an important role in ripening industries and regions for exploitation by Western corporations. Yet Mars’ colonization is a bit different than Bengal, namely in that it is not merely underdeveloped; it is undeveloped. How do you start an entirely new economy on a virgin world with no industry? After all, Martian resource extraction and trade with Earth is not feasible; the cost of transporting material across the solar system is astronomical, and there are no obvious minerals on Mars that we don’t already have in abundance on Earth. The only basis for colonization of Mars that Musk can conceive of is one based on tourism: the rich pay an amount — Musk quotes the ticket price at $200,000 if he can get 1 million tourists to pay that — that entitles them to a round-trip ticket. And while they’re on Mars and traveling to it, they luxuriate: Musk has assured that the trip would be "fun." This is what makes Musk’s Mars vision so different than, say, the Apollo missions or the International Space Station. This isn’t really exploration for humanity’s sake — there’s not that much science assumed here, as there was in the Moon missions. Musk wants to build the ultimate luxury package, exclusively for the richest among us. Musk isn’t trying to build something akin to Matt Damon’s spartan research base in "The Martian." He wants to build Mars-a-Lago. And an economy based on tourism, particularly high-end tourism, needs employees — even if a high degree of automation is assumed. And as I’ve written about before, that means a lot of labor at the lowest cost possible. Imagine signing away years of your life to be a housekeeper in the Mars-a-Lago hotel, with your communications, water, food, energy usage, even oxygen tightly managed by your employer, and no government to file a grievance to if your employer cuts your wages, harasses you, cuts off your oxygen. Where would Mars-a-Lago's employees turn if their rights were impinged upon? Oh wait, this planet is run privately? You have no rights. Musk's vision for Mars colonization is inherently authoritarian. The potential for the existence of the employees of the Martian tourism industry to slip into something resembling indentured servitude, even slavery, cannot be underestimated. We have government regulations for a reason on Earth — to protect us from the fresh horror Musk hopes to export to Mars. If he's considered these questions, he doesn't seem to care; for Musk, the devil's in the technological and financial details. The social and political are pretty uninteresting to him. This is unsurprising; accounts from those who have worked closely with him hint that he, like many CEOs, may be a sociopath. Even as a space enthusiast, I cannot get excited about the private colonization of Mars. You shouldn’t be either. This is not a giant leap for mankind; this is the next great leap in plutocracy. The mere notion that global wealth is so unevenly distributed that a small but sufficient sum of rich people could afford this trip is unsettling, indicative of the era of astonishing economic inequality in which we suffer. Thomas Frank, writing in Harpers, once wrote of a popular t-shirt he sighted while picnicking in a small West Virginia coal town: "Mine it union or keep it in the ground." The idea, of course, is that the corporations interested in resource extraction do not care whatsoever about their workers’ health, safety, or well-being; the union had their interests at heart, and was able to negotiate for safety, job security, and so on. I’d like to see a similar t-shirt or bumper sticker emerge among scientists and space enthusiasts: "Explore Mars democratically, or keep it in the sky."
Neoliberalism destroys ethics, locks in poverty and exploitation, decimates the environment, and causes war.
Werlhof 15 – Claudia, Professor of Political Science/Women's Studies, University Innsbruck (Austria), 2015 ("Neoliberal Globalization: Is There an Alternative to Plundering the Earth?" Global Research, May 25th, Available Online at http://www.globalresearch.ca/neoliberal-globalization-is-there-an-alternative-to-plundering-the-earth/24403) At the center of both old and new economic liberalism lies: Self-interest and individualism; segregation of ethical principles and economic affairs, in other words: a process of ‘de-bedding’ economy from society; economic rationality as a mere cost-benefit calculation and profit maximization; competition as the essential driving force for growth and progress; specialization and the replacement of a subsistence economy with profit-oriented foreign trade (‘comparative cost advantage’); and the proscription of public (state) interference with market forces.~3~ Where the new economic liberalism outdoes the old is in its global claim. Today’s economic liberalism functions as a model for each and everyone: all parts of the economy, all sectors of society, of life/nature itself. As a consequence, the once "de-bedded" economy now claims to "im-bed" everything, including political power. Furthermore, a new twisted "economic ethics" (and with it a certain idea of "human nature") emerges that mocks everything from so-called do-gooders to altruism to selfless help to care for others to a notion of responsibility.~4~ This goes as far as claiming that the common good depends entirely on the uncontrolled egoism of the individual and, especially, on the prosperity of transnational corporations. The allegedly necessary "freedom" of the economy – which, paradoxically, only means the freedom of corporations – hence consists of a freedom from responsibility and commitment to society. The maximization of profit itself must occur within the shortest possible time; this means, preferably, through speculation and "shareholder value". It must meet as few obstacles as possible. Today, global economic interests outweigh not only extra-economic concerns but also national economic considerations since corporations today see themselves beyond both community and nation.~5~ A "level playing field" is created that offers the global players the best possible conditions. This playing field knows of no legal, social, ecological, cultural or national "barriers".~6~ As a result, economic competition plays out on a market that is free of all non-market, extra-economic or protectionist influences – unless they serve the interests of the big players (the corporations), of course. The corporations’ interests – their maximal growth and progress – take on complete priority. This is rationalized by alleging that their well-being means the well-being of small enterprises and workshops as well. The difference between the new and the old economic liberalism can first be articulated in quantitative terms: after capitalism went through a series of ruptures and challenges – caused by the "competing economic system", the crisis of capitalism, post-war "Keynesianism" with its social and welfare state tendencies, internal mass consumer demand (so-called Fordism), and the objective of full employment in the North. The liberal economic goals of the past are now not only euphorically resurrected but they are also "globalized". The main reason is indeed that the competition between alternative economic systems is gone. However, to conclude that this confirms the victory of capitalism and the "golden West" over "dark socialism" is only one possible interpretation. Another – opposing – interpretation is to see the "modern world system" (which contains both capitalism and socialism) as having hit a general crisis which causes total and merciless competition over global resources while leveling the way for investment opportunities, i.e. the valorization of capital.~7~ The ongoing globalization of neoliberalism demonstrates which interpretation is right. Not least, because the differences between the old and the new economic liberalism can not only be articulated in quantitative terms but in qualitative ones too. What we are witnessing are completely new phenomena: instead of a democratic "complete competition" between many small enterprises enjoying the freedom of the market, only the big corporations win. In turn, they create new market oligopolies and monopolies of previously unknown dimensions. The market hence only remains free for them, while it is rendered unfree for all others who are condemned to an existence of dependency (as enforced producers, workers and consumers) or excluded from the market altogether (if they have neither anything to sell or buy). About fifty percent of the world’s population fall into this group today, and the percentage is rising.~8~ Anti-trust laws have lost all power since the transnational corporations set the norms. It is the corporations – not "the market" as an anonymous mechanism or "invisible hand" – that determine today’s rules of trade, for example prices and legal regulations. This happens outside any political control. Speculation with an average twenty percent profit margin edges out honest producers who become "unprofitable".~9~ Money becomes too precious for comparatively non-profitable, long-term projects, or projects that only – how audacious! – serve a good life. Money instead "travels upwards" and disappears. Financial capital determines more and more what the markets are and do.~10~ By delinking the dollar from the price of gold, money creation no longer bears a direct relationship to production".~11~ Moreover, these days most of us are – exactly like all governments – in debt. It is financial capital that has all the money – we have none.~12~ Small, medium, even some bigger enterprises are pushed out of the market, forced to fold or swallowed by transnational corporations because their performances are below average in comparison to speculation – rather: spookulation – wins. The public sector, which has historically been defined as a sector of not-for-profit economy and administration, is "slimmed" and its "profitable" parts ("gems") handed to corporations (privatized). As a consequence, social services that are necessary for our existence disappear. Small and medium private businesses – which, until recently, employed eighty percent of the workforce and provided normal working conditions – are affected by these developments as well. The alleged correlation between economic growth and secure employment is false. When economic growth is accompanied by the mergers of businesses, jobs are lost.~13~ If there are any new jobs, most are precarious, meaning that they are only available temporarily and badly paid. One job is usually not enough to make a living.~14~ This means that the working conditions in the North become akin to those in the South, and the working conditions of men akin to those of women – a trend diametrically opposed to what we have always been told. Corporations now leave for the South (or East) to use cheap – and particularly female – labor without union affiliation. This has already been happening since the 1970s in the "Export Processing Zones" (EPZs, "world market factories" or "maquiladoras"), where most of the world’s computer chips, sneakers, clothes and electronic goods are produced.~15~ The EPZs lie in areas where century-old colonial-capitalist and authoritarian-patriarchal conditions guarantee the availability of cheap labor.~16~ The recent shift of business opportunities from consumer goods to armaments is a particularly troubling development.~17~ It is not only commodity production that is "outsourced" and located in the EPZs, but service industries as well. This is a result of the so-called Third Industrial Revolution, meaning the development of new information and communication technologies. Many jobs have disappeared entirely due to computerization, also in administrative fields.~18~ The combination of the principles of "high tech" and "low wage"/"no wage" (always denied by "progress" enthusiasts) guarantees a "comparative cost advantage" in foreign trade. This will eventually lead to "Chinese wages" in the West. A potential loss of Western consumers is not seen as a threat. A corporate economy does not care whether consumers are European, Chinese or Indian. The means of production become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially since finance capital – rendered precarious itself – controls asset values ever more aggressively. New forms of private property are created, not least through the "clearance" of public property and the transformation of formerly public and small-scale private services and industries to a corporate business sector. This concerns primarily fields that have long been (at least partly) excluded from the logic of profit – e.g. education, health, energy or water supply/disposal. New forms of so-called enclosures emerge from today’s total commercialization of formerly small-scale private or public industries and services, of the "commons", and of natural resources like oceans, rain forests, regions of genetic diversity or geopolitical interest (e.g. potential pipeline routes), etc.~19~ As far as the new virtual spaces and communication networks go, we are witnessing frantic efforts to bring these under private control as well.~20~ All these new forms of private property are essentially created by (more or less) predatory forms of appropriation. In this sense, they are a continuation of the history of so-called original accumulation which has expanded globally, in accordance with to the motto: "Growth through expropriation!"~21~ Most people have less and less access to the means of production, and so the dependence on scarce and underpaid work increases. The destruction of the welfare state also destroys the notion that individuals can rely on the community to provide for them in times of need. Our existence relies exclusively on private, i.e. expensive, services that are often of much worse quality and much less reliable than public services. (It is a myth that the private always outdoes the public.) What we are experiencing is undersupply formerly only known by the colonial South. The old claim that the South will eventually develop into the North is proven wrong. It is the North that increasingly develops into the South. We are witnessing the latest form of "development", namely, a world system of underdevelopment.~22~ Development and underdevelopment go hand in hand.~23~ This might even dawn on "development aid" workers soon. It is usually women who are called upon to counterbalance underdevelopment through increased work ("service provisions") in the household. As a result, the workload and underpay of women takes on horrendous dimensions: they do unpaid work inside their homes and poorly paid "housewifized" work outside.~24~ Yet, commercialization does not stop in front of the home’s doors either. Even housework becomes commercially co-opted ("new maid question"), with hardly any financial benefits for the women who do the work.~25~ Not least because of this, women are increasingly coerced into prostitution, one of today’s biggest global industries.~26~ This illustrates two things: a) how little the "emancipation" of women actually leads to "equal terms" with men; and b) that "capitalist development" does not imply increased "freedom" in wage labor relations, as the Left has claimed for a long time.~27~ If the latter were the case, then neoliberalism would mean the voluntary end of capitalism once it reaches its furthest extension. This, however, does not appear likely. Today, hundreds of millions of quasi-slaves, more than ever before, exist in the "world system."~28~ The authoritarian model of the "Export Processing Zones" is conquering the East and threatening the North. The redistribution of wealth runs ever more – and with ever accelerated speed – from the bottom to the top. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. The middle classes disappear. This is the situation we are facing. It becomes obvious that neoliberalism marks not the end of colonialism but, to the contrary, the colonization of the North. This new "colonization of the world"~29~ points back to the beginnings of the "modern world system" in the "long 16th century", when the conquering of the Americas, their exploitation and colonial transformation allowed for the rise and "development" of Europe.~30~ The so-called "children’s diseases" of modernity keep on haunting it, even in old age. They are, in fact, the main feature of modernity’s latest stage. They are expanding instead of disappearing. Where there is no South, there is no North; where there is no periphery, there is no center; where there is no colony, there is no – in any case no "Western" – civilization.~31~ Austria is part of the world system too. It is increasingly becoming a corporate colony (particularly of German corporations). This, however, does not keep it from being an active colonizer itself, especially in the East.~32~ Social, cultural, traditional and ecological considerations are abandoned and give way to a mentality of plundering. All global resources that we still have – natural resources, forests, water, genetic pools – have turned into objects of utilization. Rapid ecological destruction through depletion is the consequence. If one makes more profit by cutting down trees than by planting them, then there is no reason not to cut them.~33~ Neither the public nor the state interferes, despite global warming and the obvious fact that the clearing of the few remaining rain forests will irreversibly destroy the earth’s climate – not to mention the many other negative effects of such actions.~34~ Climate, animal, plants, human and general ecological rights are worth nothing compared to the interests of the corporations – no matter that the rain forest is not a renewable resource and that the entire earth’s ecosystem depends on it. If greed, and the rationalism with which it is economically enforced, really was an inherent anthropological trait, we would have never even reached this day. The commander of the Space Shuttle that circled the earth in 2005 remarked that "the center of Africa was burning". She meant the Congo, in which the last great rain forest of the continent is located. Without it there will be no more rain clouds above the sources of the Nile. However, it needs to disappear in order for corporations to gain free access to the Congo’s natural resources that are the reason for the wars that plague the region today. After all, one needs diamonds and coltan for mobile phones. Today, everything on earth is turned into commodities, i.e. everything becomes an object of "trade" and commercialization (which truly means liquidation, the transformation of all into liquid money). In its neoliberal stage it is not enough for capitalism to globally pursue less cost-intensive and preferably "wageless" commodity production. The objective is to transform everyone and everything into commodities, including life itself.~35~ We are racing blindly towards the violent and absolute conclusion of this "mode of production", namely total capitalization/liquidation by "monetarization".~36~ We are not only witnessing perpetual praise of the market – we are witnessing what can be described as "market fundamentalism". People believe in the market as if it was a god. There seems to be a sense that nothing could ever happen without it. Total global maximized accumulation of money/capital as abstract wealth becomes the sole purpose of economic activity. A "free" world market for everything has to be established – a world market that functions according to the interests of the corporations and capitalist money. The installment of such a market proceeds with dazzling speed. It creates new profit possibilities where they have not existed before, e.g. in Iraq, Eastern Europe or China. One thing remains generally overlooked: the abstract wealth created for accumulation implies the destruction of nature as concrete wealth. The result is a "hole in the ground" and next to it a garbage dump with used commodities, outdated machinery and money without value.~37~ However, once all concrete wealth (which today consists mainly of the last natural resources) will be gone, abstract wealth will disappear as well. It will, in Marx’s words, "evaporate". The fact that abstract wealth is not real wealth will become obvious, and so will the answer to the question of which wealth modern economic activity has really created. In the end it is nothing but monetary wealth (and even this mainly exists virtually or on accounts) that constitutes a monoculture controlled by a tiny minority. Diversity is suffocated and millions of people are left wondering how to survive. And really: how do you survive with neither resources nor means of production nor money? The nihilism of our economic system is evident. The whole world will be transformed into money – and then it will disappear. After all, money cannot be eaten. What no one seems to consider is the fact that it is impossible to re-transform commodities, money, capital and machinery into nature or concrete wealth. It seems that underlying all "economic development" is the assumption that "resources", the "sources of wealth",~38~ are renewable and everlasting – just like the "growth" they create.~39~ The notion that capitalism and democracy are one is proven a myth by neoliberalism and its "monetary totalitarianism".~40~ The primacy of politics over economy has been lost. Politicians of all parties have abandoned it. It is the corporations that dictate politics. Where corporate interests are concerned, there is no place for democratic convention or community control. Public space disappears. The res publica turns into a res privata, or – as we could say today – a res privata transnationale (in its original Latin meaning, privare means "to deprive"). Only those in power still have rights. They give themselves the licenses they need, from the "license to plunder" to the "license to kill".~41~ Those who get in their way or challenge their "rights" are vilified, criminalized and to an increasing degree defined as "terrorists" or, in the case of defiant governments, as "rogue states" – a label that usually implies threatened or actual military attack, as we can see in the cases of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe Syria and Iran in the near future. U.S. President Bush had even spoken of the possibility of "preemptive" nuclear strikes should the U.S. feel endangered by weapons of mass destruction.~42~ The European Union did not object.~43~ Neoliberalism and war are two sides of the same coin.~44~ Free trade, piracy and war are still "an inseparable three" – today maybe more so than ever. War is not only "good for the economy" but is indeed its driving force and can be understood as the "continuation of economy with other means".~45~ War and economy have become almost indistinguishable.~46~ Wars about resources – especially oil and water – have already begun.~47~ The Gulf Wars are the most obvious examples. Militarism once again appears as the "executor of capital accumulation" – potentially everywhere and enduringly.~48~ Human rights and rights of sovereignty have been transferred from people, communities and governments to corporations.~49~ The notion of the people as a sovereign body has practically been abolished. We have witnessed a coup of sorts. The political systems of the West and the nation state as guarantees for and expression of the international division of labor in the modern world system are increasingly dissolving.~50~ Nation states are developing into "periphery states" according to the inferior role they play in the proto-despotic "New World Order".~51~ Democracy appears outdated. After all, it "hinders business".~52~ The "New World Order" implies a new division of labor that does no longer distinguish between North and South, East and West – today, everywhere is South. An according International Law is established which effectively functions from top to bottom ("top-down") and eliminates all local and regional communal rights. And not only that: many such rights are rendered invalid both retroactively and for the future.~53~ The logic of neoliberalism as a sort of totalitarian neo-mercantilism is that all resources, all markets, all money, all profits, all means of production, all "investment opportunities", all rights and all power belong to the corporations only. To paraphrase Richard Sennett: "Everything to the Corporations!"~54~ One might add: "Now!" The corporations are free to do whatever they please with what they get. Nobody is allowed to interfere. Ironically, we are expected to rely on them to find a way out of the crisis we are in. This puts the entire globe at risk since responsibility is something the corporations do not have or know. The times of social contracts are gone.~55~ In fact, pointing out the crisis alone has become a crime and all critique will soon be defined as "terror" and persecuted as such.~56~ IMF Economic Medicine Since the 1980s, it is mainly the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF that act as the enforcers of neoliberalism. These programs are levied against the countries of the South which can be extorted due to their debts. Meanwhile, numerous military interventions and wars help to take possession of the assets that still remain, secure resources, install neoliberalism as the global economic politics, crush resistance movements (which are cynically labeled as "IMF uprisings"), and facilitate the lucrative business of reconstruction.~57~ In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher introduced neoliberalism in Anglo-America. In 1989, the so-called "Washington Consensus" was formulated. It claimed to lead to global freedom, prosperity and economic growth through "deregulation, liberalization and privatization". This has become the credo and promise of all neoliberals. Today we know that the promise has come true for the corporations only – not for anybody else. In the Middle East, the Western support for Saddam Hussein in the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, and the Gulf War of the early 1990s, announced the permanent U.S. presence in the world’s most contested oil region. In continental Europe, neoliberalism began with the crisis in Yugoslavia caused by the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of the World Bank and the IMF. The country was heavily exploited, fell apart and finally beset by a civil war over its last remaining resources.~58~ Since the NATO war in 1999, the Balkans are fragmented, occupied and geopolitically under neoliberal control.~59~ The region is of main strategic interest for future oil and gas transport from the Caucasus to the West (for example the "Nabucco" gas pipeline that is supposed to start operating from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and the Balkans by 2011.~60~ The reconstruction of the Balkans is exclusively in the hands of Western corporations. All governments, whether left, right, liberal or green, accept this. There is no analysis of the connection between the politics of neoliberalism, its history, its background and its effects on Europe and other parts of the world. Likewise, there is no analysis of its connection to the new militarism.
Plan/Solvency
Thus, the plan: States ought to adopt a binding international agreement that bans the appropriation of outer space by private entities by establishing outer space as a global commons subject to regulatory delimiting and global liability.
The aff:
solves debris and space colonialism by ensuring the sustainable and equitable use of outer space resources.
- prevents circumvention by aligning the interests of state parties - is normal means since it models numerous successful agreements governing all other global commons. Vollmer 20 ~Sarah Louise Vollmer (St. Mary's University School of Law), "The Right Stuff in Geospace: Using Mutual Coercion to Avoid an Inevitable Prison for Humanity," 51 ST. MARY'S L.J. 777 (2020). https://commons.stmarytx.edu/thestmaryslawjournal/vol51/iss3/6?utm'source=commons.stmarytx.edu2Fthestmaryslawjournal2Fvol512Fiss32F6andutm'medium=PDFandutm'campaign=PDFCoverPages ~CT IV. NECESSITY FOR REGULATION TO PRESERVE THE HERITAGE OF MANKIND—A PROPOSAL Conceptually, all persons hold an implied property right in the space commons.111 As such, spacefaring entities and developing nations possess an equitable right to access and use orbital resources.112 But the sui generis nature of geospace presents a paradox requiring a unique regime for the sustainable usage of its resources.113 The international community cannot realize the advantages of the common heritage principle under a property regime because any conceivable assignment would violate the non-appropriation clause or unjustly enrich a particular interest.114 This means that only regulatory solutions can protect the interests inherent in a commons protected for the common heritage of mankind. A. The Motivations for International Compliance The crux of a workable treaty lies in the consent of the parties to the agreement.115 Thereafter, signatories internalize the agreement’s object and purpose into their domestic law, or in the case of international organizations, into an institutional framework.116 To implement a binding international instrument, we must therefore ask the question: Why do nations follow international law,117 and how can we use those behavioral realities to construct a workable framework to ensure geospace survives?118 At the dawn of civilized society, depending on a particular jurisdiction’s values, the laws of nature and morality compelled obedience and social order.119 When nation-states concluded international agreements, it represented the coalescence of the various values-based systems, the overlap of which formed a universal understanding of the law of mankind.120 "~The~ fundamental conceptual boundary between municipal and international law . . . view~s~ international law largely in terms of contractual relations, therefore assigning to the ‘sovereign’ a central place in the construction of the two orders."121 In other words, transnational cooperation operated through balancing the competing autonomy and values of the parties involved. Despite centuries of debate, values systems remain the principal motivating factor of compliance with international law.122 Effective regulatory regimes must, therefore, strike at the heart of what nation-states value the most, which is often related to national security.123 When entering an international agreement, whether or not a nation-state will ratify it informs us of the value a nation-state places on the instrument’s subject matter. That value equates to the utility a nation-state places on certain allowances or prohibitions.124 Incorporating these motivating factors with Hardin’s regulatory solution, any freedoms infringed upon must manifest a higher utility than currently realized. If COPUOS proposes a protocol for sustainable uses of space, the provisions must either have a negligible effect on the global community’s perceived utility of space access or substantially increase that utility. Assuming the propositioned regulatory scheme aligns with the values system of each nation-state, the probability of internalizing such regulations through domestic codification is high. To ascertain the interests of nation-states, we must look to the factors motivating current space utilization. Routine access to space undeniably aids our technological advancement. The ISS’s antigravity environment provides unique conditions to study medicine.125 Satellites provide real-time tracking of environmental conditions and transmit crucial information for disaster recovery planning.126 Space telescopes track objects with the potential to cause the extinction of life of Earth.127 Free from the veil of our hazy atmosphere, satellites can produce better imagery and ascertain the composition of potential resource deposits on celestial bodies.128 And simply receiving satellite imagery of our planet forces us to confront the realities of our fragile existence. These benefits signify the tangible realization of the OST’s object and purpose, which flow to all members of the global community.129 If we do not begin active decontamination and mitigation of space debris, the utility of geospace will cease to exist. Imagining our existence without these advances is a potent method to stress the criticality of unabated pollution in geospace. B. Existing Proposals Legal scholars have formulated several frameworks to mitigate space debris. Some recommend implementing a market-share liability regime, which assigns liability according to the volume of each nation-states’ exploits.130 Opponents of this construction rightfully highlight the inequities inherent in such a scheme. Considering the United States, Russia, and China make up the bulk of spacefaring activity, market-share liability would unduly burden these nations, and coerce a categorical exit from the space industry or a repeat of the Moon Treaty.131 Another scholar advocates for an environmental law approach, asserting that the space commons would benefit from a protocol closely mirroring the Madrid Protocol.132 While prospective applications of such a model could prevent additional accumulations, it would not feasibly abate the current collection of debris.133 The strengths of Mary Button’s mitigation proposal lie in the binding nature of the Madrid Protocol and compulsory environmental impact requirements. And though it advocates for a more collaborative conference mechanism, rather than the strict unanimous consent required of UNCOPUOS’s resolutions, it still shies away from compulsory requirements for active debris removal. Along with the Antarctic Treaty (ATS), the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) also served as a model for the Corpus Juris Spatialis. But oddly, the law of salvage was omitted from the treaties. Unlike abandoned objects at sea, once a nation-state places an object into space, ownership exists in perpetuity. Sandra Drago addressed removing the OST’s property-in-perpetuity mechanism134 so as to permit the active salvage of inoperable satellites.135 Drago’s proposal is vital to any mitigation framework. But while this removes a substantial bar currently restricting debris removal, it does not address free-riding, and spacefaring enterprises are free to choose more lucrative space activities other than salvage operations.136 C. A Coercive Proposal Mutual coercion lies at the core of Hardin’s solution.137 To summarize, law-abiding citizens make concessions to regulatory social constructs in the interest of conserving some utility otherwise lost.138 The coercive element lies in relinquishing one’s ability to exploit some freedom, the detriment of which cannot be realized at that moment in time.139 Conceding to a regime that tempers free exploitation of the commons allows everyone to benefit from the positive externalities of individual usage. Equated to space, nation-states currently concede to non-appropriation in the interest of maintaining equitable access. But because of the sui generis nature of geospace, even non-participants receive a benefit from the use of the commons. In effect, beneficiaries are free-riding from the capital investment of spacefaring nations and entities. This informs the structure of the ensuing two-part framework: geospace delimitation and global liability
Geospace Delimitation The history of regulatory delimitation illustrates its effectiveness at balancing the rights of individuals, sovereigns, and mankind. Each instance explained in Part II infra, arose out of public necessity to ensure and protect the maximum utility of the global commons, without the deleteriousness of inhabitability, sovereign interference, or over-exploitation.140 The regimes governing Antarctica, the High Seas, the Atmosphere, and the radio-frequency spectrum evidence that mutually coercive delimitation can honor the common heritage of mankind, without encroaching on the peaceful enjoyment and benefits attributable to these areas. a. Antarctica In the 1950s, there was concern that Antarctica would succumb to Cold War hysteria, becoming a target for international discord and nuclear arms testing.141 In a move to reestablish global scientific exchange, the international scientific community hosted the International Geophysical Year project, and after identifying the potential of Antarctica, sought to protect it from any ruinous power posturing.142 This necessity for regulating permissible activity resulted in the formation of the ATS.143 Subsequent technological advancement revealed mineral deposits, triggering commercial interest in exploiting its natural resources. The threat catalyzed the promulgation of the Madrid Protocol.144 Again, these delimitations did not sever humanity’s utility in Antarctica. Rather, mankind conceded to the prohibition of deleterious usage in the interest of preserving its scientific utility.145 b. The High Seas Similar to Antarctica, the High Seas faced threats in the 1960s when nation-states began unilaterally and arbitrarily, extending resource recovery activities further into the depths of international waters.146 In the interest of equity, particularly the interests of landlocked nations, UNCLOS delimited sovereign access to the seas, allowing usage only within the established exclusive economic zones (EEZs).147 An annex to UNCLOS provided a procedural framework in which resource recovery enterprises could operate in international common areas beyond the EEZs, precluding the unilateral capture of global resources by one nation.148 Once more, a mutually coercive framework removed certain freedoms in the interest of mankind without unjustly limiting equitable access to resources. c. The Atmosphere Divergent from the problems of the ice and sea, atmospheric regulation resolved an issue more analogous to geospace debris proliferation. Atmospheric utility is quite simple: breathable air and protection from deadly cosmic radiation. When satellite imagery revealed the sizable hole in the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention placed an outright ban on ozone-depleting chemicals in everyday consumables.149 This prohibition directly addressed the source of the negative externality, forcing humanity to internalize the externality through alternate investment in refrigerants. Recent evidence of the reduction of ozone loss validates the mutually coercive delimitation within the Montreal Protocol.150 d. Regulating the Telecommunication Spectrum The business model and financial strategy of telecommunications entities influence satellite deployment planning. Typically, orbital placement aims to "maximize ~a~ potential user base," and if that base happens to encompass, for instance, the continental United States, market competition drastically narrows the availability of slots for satellite positioning.151 Realizing that satellite acquisition becomes moot without conscientious "use of telemetry and control . . . required for spaceflight,"152 the Space Radiocommunication Conference convened to revise the Radio Regulations in 1963,153 granting the ITU authority to allocate radio frequencies among spacefaring entities.154 Originally, the ITU: ~A~llocated orbits and frequencies solely through a first-in-time system. This led to concern that developed countries would secure all of the available slots before developing countries had the technological capacity to use them. Although some orbits and frequencies are still allocated on a first-in-time basis, each state is now guaranteed a certain number of future orbits and frequencies, regardless of its current technological capacity.155 The FCC regulates the segment of the electromagnetic spectrum allocated to the United States.156 Arguably, the ITU and agencies like the FCC engage in de facto appropriation of the more highly sought-after orbits.157 Yet to an extent, the ITU’s delimiting of the radio-frequency spectrum remedied the negative externalities of non-appropriation in geospace, such as the overcrowding of active satellites and the resultant interference. Where the ITU’s scheme does not remedy the byproduct of geospace resource use, it succeeds in ensuring communication capabilities remain free from inequitable use.158 e. The OST’s Ineffective Delimitations The recurrent theme among the aforementioned regulatory schemes is the preservation of utility within the commons concerned.159 The frameworks each provide a means to enjoy shared resources while removing the potential for destruction. The OST’s nonproliferation provisions properly regulate the usage of the space commons to further the enjoyment of space’s true utility: scientific discovery and telecommunications. Likewise, the Liability Convention reinforces the necessity to maintain heightened situational awareness to guarantee the mutual, uninterrupted enjoyment of activity in space.160 But nation-states exploit the loop-holes within these documents to avoid internalizing some of their externalities. Specifically, the Liability Convention only assigns liability for damage caused to space objects when fault can actually be determined.161 Though it would be simple to assign fault to a collision caused by an intact and inoperative satellite, it is virtually impossible to identify the owner of smaller pieces of debris. Further, while the ITU reserves slots for nations not represented in space,162 it does nothing to stop those capable of reaching geospace from littering the commons and destroying the utility of reserved slots.163 Holistically, none of the delimitations in the Corpus Juris Spatialis negate the cause of the growing belt of debris in geospace. As a sui generis resource, the mere occupation of LEO or GSO equates to the reduction of the overall utility of geospace. When an entity launches a rocket into space, the accompanying payload causes either (1) temporary reduction of the aggregate utility of geospace or (2) permanent reduction of the aggregate utility of geospace.164 The first delimitation prong will recommend bifurcating the applicability of the Corpus Juris Spatialis, with separate regimes for outer space and geospace. While the commercialization of outer space is not overly injurious to the international commons or interests of developing nations, the overcrowding of affluent spacefaring entities vying for orbital acquisition puts immense pressure on the finite resources within geospace. Therefore, demarcating the upper limit of geospace will allow entities to continue exploring the universe without imposing the restrictions placed on those seeking geospace positioning.165 This modification will allow continued use of both regions, but coerce more sustainable usage of geospace with the assistance of the secondary prong below. 2. Global Liability Operating under the theory that humanity holds an implied property right in the global commons but limited under the non-appropriation clause to protect those interests through traditional property mechanisms, the logical alternative is to impose liability on actions violative of the global interest.166 Further, assuming humanity collectively benefits from utilization of this commons, then humanity likewise must internalize the cost of the negative externalities imposed.167 This means that spacefarers, as members of the global collective, hold both the right and obligation to protect that right for others.168 Therefore, anyone utilizing or benefitting from the utilization of the geospace commons has an equitable duty to ensure its sustainability. Under traditional tort theories, when one has a duty, breach of that duty causally linked to a measurable injury is actionable. In terms of the duty to humanity when utilizing geospace, the culmination of Kessler Syndrome represents the measurable injury. Kessler informed the scientific community in 1970 of the probable cataclysmic chain-reaction and destructive conclusion of unabated geospace debris pollution.169 This theory, reiterated consistently since its dissemination, materialized in 2009.170 Fundamentally, every spacefaring entity and approving launching state knows of this monumental threat to the utility of geospace. Yet to date, mitigation guidelines remain non-binding, and four-figure satellite constellations continue to receive approval.171 To incorporate a time-honored risk calculation method, the Hand Formula is instructive and evidences a trend toward unapologetic endangerment to the utility of geospace in isolation of the associated tort regime. Let us assume the burden to mitigate space debris is $18.5 million172 but the probable magnitude of not mitigating the accumulation of space debris equates to reverting our technological capabilities back to the 1800s. Considering the accumulation of debris from the accidental or intentional breakup of geospace satellites, the probability of Kessler Syndrome fully concluding in the absence of a comprehensive mitigation protocol is one hundred percent.173 While difficult to quantify, the value of our scientific progress attributable to the advent of space travel far outstrips the burden to mitigate space debris. Should Kessler Syndrome become our reality, the measurable injury is the cost of reestablishing global communications without the usage of satellite relays. To add insult to injury, the invaluable utility of geospace will cease to exist. A viable alternative would institute a regime of shared global liability which makes consideration of capital investors as well as nonparticipating beneficiaries in the interest of equity. That is, should the inevitable prison for humanity become a reality, the entire global community will be liable to pay an equitable share of the overall cost of recovery efforts.174 The Liability Convention should undergo a similar trifurcation, adding this new scheme to the current strict and absolute liability mechanisms.175 As such, shared global liability will consider the responsibility of nation-states and private entities in isolation.176 This will coerce cooperation among all agencies, nations, and private entities because the equitable share of responsibility will drive collective resolution. V. CONCLUSION In light of the emerging global sentiments regarding environmental conservation and sustainability, instituting a regime that clearly defines a legal consequence in the event of environmental ruin boasts greater coercive force than non-binding resolutions. 9 This international agreement aligns with the universal value that the international community places on the utility of geospace.177 In essence, it protects geospace by forcing the signatory to face the reality of their negative externalities. It is unlikely that a nation-state exists that does not value space exploration and the benefits attributable. In April of 2019, in the spirit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), COPUOS adopted an agenda that focused on the long-term sustainability of the space commons, space traffic management, equitable uses of GSO, and the mitigation of space debris.178 Mindful of space’s critical role in attaining many of the SDGs, the Committee put forth guidelines to facilitate capacity building without prejudice to any one nation-states’ economic capabilities. To be sure, the Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities are an important step forward, but many delegates reiterated the importance of developing binding instruments, particularly in light of developments in "space resource exploitation, large constellations, and space debris remediation."179 Looking forward, research continues to advance the availability of debris mitigation mechanisms, such as the European Space Agency’s newly-commissioned ClearSpace-1 satellite.180 Mission objectives increasingly include end-of-life procedures to place satellites in appropriate orbits to decrease clutter in areas where active satellites operate.181 In the context of private entities, Planetary Resources—originally positioned to become a principle player in the space mining industry—merged with Consensys Space and quickly launched TruSat, a crowd-sourced situational awareness forum that compiles the reports of private citizens to track objects in geospace.182 These developments instill confidence in the international community’s sentiments toward ameliorating this ever-approaching catastrophe. It is with great hope that this trend continues, and COPUOS promulgates binding regulations to ensure the sustainability of geospace for the common heritage of mankind. "But we can never do nothing. That which we have done for thousands of years is also action. It also produces evils."183
Treating space as a commons solves orbital debris. Current non-binding agreements are not enough.
Silverstein and Panda ‘3/9 - Benjamin Silverstein ~research analyst for the Space Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. MA, International Relations, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs BA, International Affairs, George Washington University~ and Ankit Panda ~Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. AB, Princeton University~, "Space Is a Great Commons. It’s Time to Treat It as Such." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Web). March 9, 2021. Accessed Dec. 13, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/03/09/space-is-great-commons.-it-s-time-to-treat-it-as-such-pub-84018 AT The failure to manage Earth orbits as a commons undermines safety and predictability, exposing space operators to growing risks such as collisions with other satellites and debris. The long-standing debris problem has been building for decades and demands an international solution.¶ Competing states need to coalesce behind a commons-based understanding of Earth orbits to set the table for a governance system to organize space traffic and address rampant debris. New leadership in the United States can spur progress on space governance by affirming that Earth orbits are a great commons. So far, President Joe Biden and his administration have focused on major space projects, but a relatively simple policy declaration that frames Earth orbits as a great commons can support efforts to negotiate space governance models for issues like debris mitigation and remediation. The Biden administration can set the stage to pursue broad space policy goals by establishing a consensus among states, particularly those with the most invested in Earth orbits, that space is a great commons.¶ THE PRESSING NEED FOR SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ The Earth orbits that provide the majority of benefits to states and commercial ventures represent only a tiny fraction of outer space as a whole. Competition for the limited volume of these Earth orbits is especially fierce since two satellites cannot be in the same place at the same time and not all orbits are equally useful for all missions. The number of objects residing in Earth orbits is now at an all-time high, with most new objects introduced into orbits at altitudes of between 400 and 700 kilometers above sea level. Millions of pieces of debris in Earth orbits pose a threat to continuing space operations. For instance, the final U.S. space shuttle missions faced 1-in-300 odds of losing a space vehicle or crew member to orbital debris or micrometeoroid impacts.¶ Collisions with fragments of orbital litter as small as a few millimeters across can ruin satellites and end missions. Current technologies cannot track all of these tiny pieces of debris, leaving space assets at the mercy of undetectable, untraceable, and unpredictable pieces of space junk. Some researchers have determined that the debris population in low Earth orbit is already self-sustaining, meaning that collisions between space objects will produce debris more rapidly than natural forces, like atmospheric drag, can remove it from orbit.¶ States—namely the United States, Russia, China, and India—have exacerbated this debris accumulation trend by testing kinetic anti-satellite capabilities or otherwise purposefully fragmenting their satellites in orbit. These states, along with the rest of the multilateral disarmament community, are currently at an impasse on establishing future space governance mechanisms that can address the debris issue. A portion of this impasse may be attributable to disparate views of the nature of outer space in the international context. Establishing a clear view among negotiating parties that Earth orbits should be treated as a great commons would establish a basis for future agreements that reduce debris-related risks.¶ Beyond debris-generating, kinetic anti-satellite weapons tests, revolutionary operating concepts challenge existing space traffic management practices. For instance, commercial ventures are planning networks of thousands of satellites to provide low-latency connectivity on Earth and deploying them by the dozens. States are following this trend. Some are considering transitioning away from using single (or few) exquisite assets in higher orbits and toward using many satellites in low Earth orbits. These new operational concepts could lead to an increase in collision risks.¶ Without new governance agreements, problems related to debris, heavy orbital traffic, and harmful interference will only intensify. Debris in higher orbits can persist for a century or more. The costs of adapting to increasingly polluted orbits would be immense, and the opportunity costs would be even higher. For instance, all else being equal, hardening satellites against collisions increases their mass and volume, in turn raising launch costs per satellite. These costs, rooted in a failure to govern space as a commons, will be borne by all space actors, including emerging states and commercial entities.¶ EXISTING FORMS OF SPACE GOVERNANCE¶ A well-designed governance system, founded on a widespread understanding of Earth orbits as a great commons, could temper these risks. Currently, space is not wholly unregulated, but existing regulations are limited both in scope and implementation. Many operators pledge to follow national regulations and international guidelines, but decentralized accountability mechanisms limit enforcement. These guidelines also do not cover the full range of potentially risky behaviors in space. For example, while some space operators can maneuver satellites to avoid collisions, there are no compulsory rules or standards on who has the right of way.¶ At the interstate level, seminal multilateral agreements provide some more narrow guidance on what is and is not acceptable in space. Most famously, the Outer Space Treaty affirms that outer space "shall be free for exploration and use by all states without discrimination of any kind" and that "there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies." Similar concepts of Earth orbits being a great commons arise in subsequent international texts. Agreements like the Liability Convention impose fault-based liability for debris-related collisions in space, but it is difficult to prove fault in this regime in part because satellite owners and operators have yet to codify a standard of care in space, and thus the regime does not clearly disincentivize debris creation in orbit. Other rules of behavior in Earth orbits have been more successful in reducing harmful interference between satellite operations, but even these efforts are limited in scope.¶ States have acceded to supranational regulations of the most limited (and thus most valuable) Earth orbits. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) coordinates, but does not authorize, satellite deployments and operations in geosynchronous orbits and manages radiofrequency spectrum assignments in other regions of space to reduce interference between satellites. These coordination activities are underpinned by the ITU’s constitution, which reminds states "that radio frequencies and any associate orbits . . . are limited natural resources," indicating a commons-based approach to governing the radiofrequency spectrum. However, the union’s processes are still adapting to new operational realities in low Earth orbit, and these rules were never designed to address issues like debris.
Current law governing space bans state appropriation, BUT ALLOWS private appropriation. A true global commons regime would require a form of democratic governance that ensures the equitable use of space resources and overcomes the expansion of neoliberal capitalism into outer space.
Dardot 18 ~Pierre Dardot, "What democracy for the global commons?," The Commons and a New Global Governance, ed. Samuel Cogolati and Jan Wouters (2018). https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/58613276/What'Democracy'-'Dardot'Leuwen'2018.pdf?1552469271=andresponse-content-disposition=inline3B+filename3DWhat'democracy'for'the'global'commons.pdfandExpires=1642726034andSignature=YJi8AG6~~Y—-mP0qsop4i3t~Z5bVLtQYwuDtUdXm6sdKaYwCJFFzQOL-OiY9nIH~JZsophnChwMlUMSGOCDVh7NhHmUonD28k9fU9PrfN2nYTNV2x8XnvoK2KtelSRvRyWN78eA7uC1isTAf1pO5~abPS9XQnORhjp9nPXjpIuBqLrrJhIUCKNjEorJ0u1h63DxkORBKVZfFh-TawG~PS~WdamGNqfljxjaP1G5bG-hUh1aNw0CuXhnqdd8yeH0-uT7iXVNu8cDl2zOtobIiAmD0SBKxjUXP8SYLkvNO0BETnpIzetK7gW8yksHtYjt-WasarhkMQpHeNwvJOY8QeA''andKey-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA~ CT Using ‘commons’ as a noun, thus, implies a methodological break with this reification of common things, as well as with the logic underlying the classification of goods in economic theory. A ‘commons’ is first and foremost an institutional affair and, more specifically, an institutional space defined by collectively developed practical rules. What is most important is the dimension of instituting the activity, and not the technical characteristics of things and goods. Here lies the essential difference between common goods and the common(s). We must specify, therefore, that any commons, insofar as it is instituted as such, is a good in an ethical and political sense. By contrast, any good that is capable of being purchased and sold, is not in itself a commons. This means that a commons is a good only under the condition that it is not a possession or an acquisition. In other words, once it is instituted, a commons is inalienable and inappropriable. It creates a space within which use prevails over ownership. It is, thus, not a resource in itself – even when it is related to one. In this way we understand a commons to be the active link between an object, a place, a natural resource (for example, a waterfall or a forest), or something artificial (for example, a theatre or a square) and the collective activity of those who take charge of it, preserve it, maintain it and take care of it. This activity is not external to the commons, but instead inherent in it. If we take this to be the definition of every common, then a third implication is that a common, regardless of its specific designation, requires self-government or democratic government. The very act of establishing a common is in and of itself a democratic act. The act of governing a common is nothing more than the continuation of the democratic act; it is thus a sort of continuation of the institution. It consists of reviving this institution by critically assessing its collective rules, whenever the situation demands it. As such, the governance of the common can only proceed from the principle of democracy – the non-democratic governance of a common would threaten, in the short-term, the very existence of this common. I call this the principle of the common, this time in the singular form. For that purpose, I refer to the Latin etymology of this word: the common, or ‘cum-munus’, is the co-obligation that results from co-participation in the same activity. This co-obligation cannot proceed from the simple fact of belonging. Democracy is, in essence, co-participation in public affairs. The Occupy movement (for example, the anti-austerity movement in Spain, also referred to as the 15-M Movement or the Indignados, or the wave of protests in 2013 to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Gezi Park) brought with it a strong anti-oligarchic critique of contemporary political representation, advocating for ‘real democracy’. Most notable is that this democratic requirement is strongly tied to ecological claims based on preserving the ‘commons’ (urban spaces in particular) against any sort of private or state enclosure. It then becomes evident that the commons (in the plural) cannot but be established or governed but by the implementation of the principle of the common (in the singular), which is to say, democracy. To sum up, common use requires self-government. Yet these examples would seem to speak in favour of the establishment of a local democracy, confined within specific geographic limits (for example, a neighbourhood or a city). Aristotle argued for a similar sort of constraint, pointing that beyond a certain number, citizens could no longer know each other. This capacity to mutually engage with one another was, according to him, an important condition for the exercise of democracy. Thus emerges a challenge I will here try to tackle: what sort of democracy is required for commons which are not local, but global in nature – global commons? My thesis is that this democracy can only be global. It remains to be seen what this sort of global democracy should look like. CURRENT PARADIGMS TO DEAL WITH THE UNLIMITED COSMOCAPITALISM With neoliberal capitalism we have come to know a singular historical phenomenon, which I will refer to as ‘cosmocapitalism’. How can this be understood? Cosmocapitalism is not merely a geographical or spatial extension of capitalism, since this extension appeared along with the birth of capitalism. It represents capitalism’s tendency to become universal. By this, I mean that capital tends to submit all aspects of human existence, even those most intimate and subjective, along with the natural world, to the market’s logic, which is nothing more than the logic of competition. The terms ‘world’ and ‘cosmos’ do not describe the planet in a physical sense, or even the global population, but rather the political framework, with its institutional and normative qualities whereby the expansion of the market’s logic becomes possible. Max Weber already described the idea of an immense cosmos which imposes its economic activity on the individual caught within the market’s grasp (Weber, 2002). Today, this cosmos has grown beyond the single economic sphere to include the social sphere. 3.1 Humanity’s Common Heritage Paradigm and the Appropriation of Space A first example will allow us to highlight this logic of limitlessness by examining the delegation of tasks between the state and private enterprises. On 25 November 2015, just a few days before the opening of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) of the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris, Barack Obama passed law H.R.2262, which provided authorization for private American companies to use natural resources from outer space (US Congress, 2015). As we know, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty established the legal status of outer space in the following manner (United Nations, 1967). Article 1 acknowledged that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, implying free and equal access without discrimination of any kind. Article 2 established that ‘Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means’. These two conditions, equal access for all and non-ownership, are strictly complementary and both refer to subjects recognized by international law, that is to say, the states: ‘national appropriation’ is state ownership and non-appropriation refers to non-appropriation by states only. It is precisely from this ambiguity that the law (US Congress, 2015) was cleverly enacted on 25 November 2015. Its name is already quite self-evident: US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. In a nutshell, the Act gives any United States (US) citizen involved in commercial exploration and exploitation of an asteroid or space resource, the right to own, possess, transport, use, and sell this resource provided it is in accordance with the applicable legislation. This amounts to giving American companies a property right over space resources in due form (Calimaq, 2015). Yet, the law passed by Congress seems to pretend the contrary, as it provides a so-called ‘Disclaimer of Extraterritorial Sovereignty’ in Section 3 of the Act (US Congress, 2015) By the enactment of this Act, the United States– Exercises its jurisdiction over United States citizens and vessels, and foreign persons and vessels otherwise subject to its jurisdiction, in the exercise of the high seas freedom to engage in exploration for, and commercial recovery of, hard mineral resources of the deep seabed in accordance with generally accepted principles of international law recognized by the United States; but Does not thereby assert sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any areas or resources in the deep seabed. We can clearly see how this law circumvents the prohibition of national appropriation articulated by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty: the prohibition forbids states themselves from ‘national appropriation by claim of sovereignty’, but it does not prevent a private company from exploring or exploiting space resources for commercial purposes. It goes without saying that the enactment of this law was very much applauded by private companies planning to embark on asteroid mining. What is remarkable about this law is that it confirms the international commitment of the US not to assert sovereignty over any space resource, while simultaneously conferring private companies the right to appropriate resources therein without any restriction. Under the Outer Space Treaty, the legal status of the ‘common things’ (res communes), under which certain resources are known to be common by nature (as in Roman law), is not formally addressed. Under Article I of the Outer Space Treaty, the outer space is not even declared to be the ‘common heritage of mankind’, but simply the ‘province of all mankind’ (United Nations, 1967). The notion of ‘common heritage’ was only explicitly introduced in 1967 to deal with the legal status of the deep seabed beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (United Nations General Assembly, 1967). Regardless of the ambiguity of this notion, particularly regarding the holder of such heritage, the idea of ‘heritage’ implies a double duty to both preserve and transmit it. However, international law limits the right of use for states only, as they alone are faced with the prohibition of appropriation. We are, therefore, presented with a way of extrapolating the res communes category inherited from Roman law, insofar as non-appropriation and common use are present, but subordinate to the goodwill of the states. Thus, we are faced with a cheap if not unfinished version of a ‘common’, which is entrusted to states, and limits state sovereignty without even calling it into question. With the Competitiveness Act (US Congress, 2015), we are faced with an act of state sovereignty that manages to circumvent the prohibition of appropriation by a sovereign state without formally violating it. This represents a sort of ‘delegation’ under which the state, on the one hand, grants its citizens a legal title that it denies to itself, on the other, it does so in order to better guarantee it to those to whom it has been delegated. The imperium (state sovereignty) gives full licence for all candidates to the dominium, to privately control and appropriate any resources they are able to seize: statutory law enforces beforehand the power that technology provides. Beyond this collusion between the state and private companies, what emerges here is the powerful homology between state and private ownership: imperium and dominium appear to be based on two forms of a similar logic of ownership, which affirm one another. The primary challenge facing the heritage of mankind paradigm is that it does not fundamentally break with interstate logic and, as such, leaves leeway for private appropriation. 3.2 The Global Public Goods Paradigm and the Value of Biodiversity A second example allows us to unveil the same neoliberal capitalist logic at work within the realm of the destruction of the biosphere. At the end of the 1980s, with the momentum of the pollution rights initiated by Reagan, George H. W. Bush encouraged the expansion of the market endorsing the ‘No Net Loss’ goal (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: p. 45). The seemingly small adjective ‘net’ carries with it a heavy connotation. It does not mean that we do not have the right to destroy biodiversity but rather, the opposite. Indeed, under the ‘No Net Loss’ principle, we have the right to destroy biodiversity as long as we replace whatever has been destroyed elsewhere. In other words, damages resulting from human activities must be balanced by at least equivalent gains. For example, we have the right to destroy ten acres of forest in one area, as long as we plant ten acres of trees elsewhere, within the next 30 years, because once the new trees have grown, it will not make any difference. In market lingo, this is referred to as ‘biodiversity offsetting’. The neoliberal argument is the same and is now well-established – we have failed to obtain our reduction goals, so we must adapt our strategy by trying new financial mechanisms, which are much more effective than the inefficient laws and regulations. That these so-called ‘laws and regulations’ have failed because they have bet on the market must be hidden. It is always the same explanation – if we failed, it is not because we conceded to the market, but rather the opposite, because we did not sufficiently take advantage of it. What is the relationship between this logic of compensation and actual biodiversity, which is made up of the interaction between complex systems, and not of detachable and interchangeable parts? A good example comes from the Brazilian company Vale, which sought to present eucalyptus plantations as a form of reforestation of the Amazon rainforest whose destruction it has actively contributed to. The logic of this compensation can be understood as equivalency logic in its most literal sense. That is, it assumes that there is a commensurability between the Amazon rainforest and eucalyptus plantations, which would affirm their equal value. This type of reasoning is completely indifferent to the sort of relationship a tree has with the soil: the fact that the eucalyptus, which originated from Australia, actually dries up the Amazonian soil, is not at all taken into consideration (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: pp. 94–5). As Marx so aptly described it in the first Volume of his major book Capital (1992), the logic behind market equivalency is at its core a logic of indifference to the qualitative differences that exist between different types of work, and the products that stem from each. What is remarkable here is that we are not referring to the products of human work but instead to living ecosystems. Here we have come to a critical point: the marketing of biodiversity requires that we assign value to something that is not, in fact, a product of work. This argument was reaffirmed by Pavel Sukhdev, a banker who has directed the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 2007: ‘We take advantage of nature because it has value. But we lose it because it is free’ (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: p. 62). Thus, ‘~t~he economy has become the currency of politics’ (sic), we have to learn to understand ‘~t~he economic value of nature’ and express it in a way that is clear to political decision makers. In essence, we must remedy the ‘~i~nvisible economics of nature’ by assigning to it a monetary value or a price. In order to carry out this task we must employ a calculation: in this way, the pollination of trees and flowers by bees constitutes an economically invisible service whose value is estimated at 200 billion dollars, which is almost 8 per cent of the global agricultural production on earth according to Pavel Sukhdev (ibid.: p. 9). The same principle can be applied to pure air or drinking water – the services they render become more and more valuable as they become increasingly rare. Scarcity has always determined value, except that now scarcity represents the services provided by nature. But what exactly does the notion of an economically assessable ‘service’ mean? What vision of nature does it propose and is this conceptualization really new? For a long time, biodiversity was conceived of as a group of resources comprised of several distinct elements (genes, species, habitats and so on), which were capable of being owned, purchased and sold. This conception prevailed in Rio during the Convention on Biological Diversity (United Nations, 1992). But, at the end of the twentieth century, a more dynamic representation emerged which posited that ecosystems should be recognized as the ‘third level of biodiversity’, situated above genes and species (Feydel and Bonneuil, 2015: pp. 164–166). Now processes and flows take precedence over individual entities and elements. Although we can measure the intrinsic value of the latter, we can only appreciate the value of process and flow in terms of ‘services’. It is, thus, not biodiversity in and of itself which is valuable, but more so the services rendered by the ecosystems that possess value. Hence the notion of ‘ecosystem services’, consisting of streams of natural capital stock which, when combined with human industrial activities, gives way to human welfare (ibid.: pp. 59 and 165). ‘Provisioning services’ (related to ‘resources’: food, wood, grains and so on), ‘regulating services’ (the climate, rainfall, water quality), and ‘cultural services’ (spiritual or recreational value of nature) can be counted among such services. Biobanks sell shares to protect species threatened by deforestation to the very companies who carry out such acts (ibid.: p. 154). Many are unwavering in their belief that the biosphere as a whole should be treated as natural capital. In keeping with this line of thought, the following shift occurs: the biosphere should not enter the commercial sphere merely as a commodity (the logic underlying the sale of timber and industrial capitalism, marketing ‘biological resources’ and patented genes, and so on), but also and most importantly as an asset (that is, within the context of securities eligible for future revenue based on the logic of annuities) (ibid.: p. 166). Thus, we move from the simple commodification of nature, typical of industrial capitalism, which emphasizes producing goods, to neoliberal capitalist financialization and, simultaneously, from the portrayal of nature as a ‘resource’ to its representation as capital generating a ‘flow of services’. How does the theory of GPGs (Kaul et al., 1999) allow us to fight against this trend to financialization? Is GPGs theory not designed, on the contrary, to promote governance of private and state actors? As we know, beyond the criteria relative to the beneficiaries of such goods (the publicum which turns these goods into global goods), this theory distinguishes between three classes of GPGs: global natural goods (for example, ozone layer, climate stability); (ii) goods that constitute man-made heritage (for example, knowledge, cultural heritage, the Internet); and (iii) goods that result from global politics (for example, peace, health, financial stability). While the first class represents natural goods, the other two result from human activity. However, the distinction between these three distinct classes becomes blurred in the case of the negative consequences flowing from poorly managed non-renewable energy. As a result of global policies, global natural goods slide into the third category of GPGs. Moreover, an economistic approach in terms of supply requires that these natural goods are reduced to ‘stock variables’ like the goods of the second category, whereas the goods of the third category are conceived as ‘flow variables’ since a continued effort is required to ensure their potential. But if natural assets are now part of the third category, should we conclude that they have become ‘flow variables’? In any case, the evolution from ‘stock’ to ‘flow’ corresponds precisely with the sort of change that accompanies and legitimizes nature’s financialization. Finally, and most worryingly, the value attributed to biological diversity is estimated by reference to the costs of protecting it. Thus, biological diversity enters the category of public goods that have an ‘intrinsic existence value’ ‘in an effort to grapple with and ultimately define the intrinsic worth of protecting the ~good~’ (ibid.: p. 253). We would be better off articulating that this is not intrinsic at all: biodiversity has no value of its own and is not a good in and of itself; instead, its value is derived from the fact that it is the result of subjective appreciation, which amounts to recognizing that this is a good. We see what can result from the ambiguity surrounding the term ‘good’. But overall this confirms the rejection of the notion of biodiversity’s intrinsic value in favour of the idea that value is assigned by an external party, which expresses in its own way the notion of ‘ecosystem services’. 4. COSMODEMOCRACY Given the logic underlying cosmocapitalism, we must find out a new type of global democracy if we wish to have any chance of halting and reversing it. Such a democracy will be referred to below as cosmodemocracy. It is indeed linked to cosmopolitanism; that is, to the idea of global politics and global citizenship. 4.1 Different Types of Cosmopolitanism 4.1.1 Cosmopolitanism as a project Cosmopolitanism can be defined as the feeling and consciousness of belonging to the same world. It can be expressed in many different ways. It can represent the awareness of living in the same world or sharing the same human condition, the feeling of sharing a common, confined space, and the feeling of being affected by everything that affects another part of humanity. According to Kant’s well-known dictum, ‘a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world’ (Kant, 1977). The awareness of belonging to a shared world has been expressed in noteworthy works of philosophy. This is particularly true of stoicism, within which man is seen as belonging to part of a ‘Universal’ or ‘Upper City’ and whose political city is just a small image. Individuals are then viewed as a citizens of the world, but this citizenship is not at all political. By virtue of its universalism, Christianity was able to modify and extend its tradition through the ‘catholicity’ of the Church. The idea that human rights are not limited to any specific country, but are universal in nature, arose from Christian universalism and found support from various scholars and lawyers, including Anacharsis Cloots, author of Bases constitutionnelles de la République du genre humain (1793). Yet the framework remains one in which the world is assimilated to the nation: the human race becomes the only ruler so that the Universal Republic must identify with the Republic of Mankind and there is only one nation that corresponds with humanity itself. With Kant’s Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay (1795), cosmopolitanism begins to take a new meaning. Kant distinguishes between three overlapping components of public law: municipal or civil law (ius civitatis), which should be a republican constitution; (ii) international law or the law of nations (ius gentium), which provides for the right of states to engage in mutual relations or international law via a federation of free states; and (iii) cosmopolitan law (ius cosmopoliticum). However, cosmopolitan law is intended to guarantee the right of ‘hospitality’ to all individuals – which is a right of access merely to promote trade. In this way, cosmopolitanism restricts the cosmos to the commercial sphere without establishing a genuine political citizenship. 4.1.2 Factual cosmopolitanization What was once only an idea or ideal has become part of how we now live. Cosmopolitanism has become the new reality, both in an objective and subjective sense, and what Ulrich Beck has called ‘banal cosmopolitanism’ (2006: p. 26). This factual cosmopolitanization, borne out of the growth of interdependence and transnationalization of ways of life and cultures, should not be confused with transnational political activities and institutional creations, even if the link between these phenomena seems quite obvious. Factual cosmopolitanization is essential to the world’s inhabitants, albeit to varying degrees. It became extremely important at the turn of the century. With the rise of global risks, it began to haunt our minds, penetrating the banality of everyday life, for example, with respect to food, altering our aesthetic tastes, and changing our approach to interstate relations by giving preference to human rights over sovereignty. It is no longer a matter of assigning positive value to the world’s political organization by imagining what the future might hold. It is rather about establishing and characterizing the multitude of processes that transform everyday life up to the point where they lead to the relativization of national borders. According to Beck, ‘reality itself has become cosmopolitan’ (ibid.: p. 10). With globalization and resistance to the latter, a new era has emerged – that of ‘reflexive modernity’. In order to see, understand, and analyse it, one must abandon the ‘national perspective’ and ‘methodological nationalism’, 4.1.3 Normative and institutional cosmopolitanism What Beck also failed to see is that normative and institutional cosmopolitanism do not flow freely and naturally from factual cosmopolitanization. This is so, firstly, because of the opposition of forces that have no interest in seeing their powers being eroded. Second, and most importantly, because a strictly empirical conceptualization of factual cosmopolitanization runs the risk of overlooking immediately what is generated from internal relations of domination in national and local settings, and what is beyond local level democratic control. Now, because the local and national spheres are losing their ‘naturalness’, for those who live in those areas, the effects of globalization imply that the normative and institutional issues arise with urgency in a political form that is antagonistic. Factual cosmopolitanization is no longer a ‘happy globalization’, but for many the dispossession of their destiny. We must give credit to Karl Renner, Austrian Social Democrat and Austro-Marxist, for encouraging the reflection on the switch between a de facto internationalism to an institutionalized internationalism (Renner, 1998). This de facto internationalism, comprised of economic, social and cultural forms of internationalization, demonstrates how the world’s legal fabric extends beyond the mere sum of nations. In the same way that the nation is the product of a historical development which culminates in its legal capacity at the end of the eighteenth century, the ‘internation’, to use Mauss’ term, will inevitably find its legal form from a substrate of facts that is poorly or not at all seen, but as such, represents a legal duty. The term ‘international’ should not be taken at face value, as it represents much more than international relations between states. Indeed, it involves the way in which the world is constructed, legally and politically, in its post-Westphalian organization. According to Mauss, the enemy is state sovereignty, as it represents an obstacle to real human interests. We are moving towards a world order that will no longer be limited by the coexistence of sovereign nation states, what Renner calls the ‘institutional Oecumene’. The creation of the League of Nations in 1920 gave way to a new era, as the ‘community of nations’ was granted legal standing above the states. Renner claims that, as a result of the establishment of the League, a ‘supra-State international law’ appeared in order to guarantee an infra-state national law, which itself protects minorities. However, as Renner argues, this step remained constrained by the desire to freeze the acquired positions after the First World War. We know that this is also exactly what happened in 1945 with the creation of the United Nations: as demonstrated recently during the COP 21, the most glaring contradiction still exists between the interstate logic of a group of sovereign states, and the need for a global community which undermines the sovereignty of each state in order to respect higher principles which cater to the interests of humanity. Hence Renner’s proposal in 1937: delegates representing ‘partial international interests’ (capital, labour, culture and so on) should be members of the League of Nations Council. It is under this condition that international interests would be taken into account, since the representatives in question would not be able to mandate all issues nationally. The question, then, is how to make this global human community exist as such. We can envision this as Renner did when describing a global parliament or, more specifically, a second chamber of representatives in which the people themselves articulate and make decisions about their economic structure and social values, along with their present grievances and hopes for the future (Renner, 1998: p. 74). Yet it is evident that the creation of a supranational chamber does not respond to the needs of those who represent ‘partial international interests’. Indeed, the parliamentary system of representation, with all its inherent vices, is simply replicated on a global scale. In order to overcome the interstate’s limitations, we must decide to make the leap from internationalism and cosmopolitanism to cosmopolitics; that is, to a political organization of humanity 4.2 Cosmopolitics The two paradigms discussed above suffer from a crippling limitation – that of humanity’s common heritage which subjects the ‘common things’ to the interstate logic, and that of GPGs, which leave the latter to the governance of private and state actors. Still, progress has been made in the establishment of humankind law. But, even assuming a legal status was assigned to humanity, this would not suffice, and neither would a cosmopolitan consciousness, in reaching cosmopolitan institutions. How do we overcome the double impasse imposed by the interstate and global private law, while paving the way for humanity’s common form of political activity; which is to say, a real democracy for humanity? I would like to highlight two points which I feel are complementary. The first relates to the institutional architecture of a global democracy and the second concerns the political activity of world citizens. The first requires, above all, a political imagination, and the second assumes that we extend the observation of collective practices and experimentations already underway. 4.2.1 The dual federation of the commons In order to introduce the first point, we must return to our discussion of the commons. Early on in this chapter, we established that the commons are institutional matters to the extent that they determine the rules of common use. In this sense, the commons emerge from what we might legally refer to as the ‘public’, not only in the orthodox economics sense of the collective nature of ‘public goods’, but also in terms of the public in opposition to the private. It is important to note that this public sui generis is non-state public. What exactly does this mean? The state’s public aims to ensure universal access to services but it does so by allowing state administration to monopolize the management of these services, thereby excluding users reduced to mere consumer status. The non-state public of the commons guarantees universal access via user participation in this management. Note that non-state does not mean anti-state, but rather, autonomous from the state. But what are we to make of the state itself? Under what conditions can it itself become a common? And how can we conceptualize its articulation to what belongs to the infra- and supra-state levels? Moreover, how can the different types of commons be organized among themselves? The magnitude of these questions led us to imagine a political system, that of non-centred federalism, which was inspired by Proudhon (1863). Indeed, he designed a dual federation of social and economic organizations, representing the municipalities as well as the production units and working companies, both of which should be governed by the principle of democracy. In a similar way, we can distinguish, on the one hand, the social-economic commons (common of river, common of forest, seed bank, production unit and so on) independently constituted of territoriality and administrative borders and, on the other hand, political commons formed through the process of increasingly integrating territories (municipalities, regions, states, international groupings of states). Yet, in all of this we are neither statists nor anarchists. We are even reluctant to consider a single global government or a single world state, which would imply a centralized form of authority that is incompatible with the democracy required by the institution of the commons. We are supporters of a polyarchic system, which should not be understood as ‘government of the many’ but instead as ‘many governments’ democratically coordinated across the world, which naturally implies a systematic intersection of different types of government, state and non-state, politics, and socio-economics. 4.2.2 Global citizenship These ‘demo-cosmopolitan’ systems will not come from above and they will not emerge from interstate decisions or contractual agreements between private actors. Historically, the exercise of constructive activist citizenship has been an important precursor to the creation of new political institutions. Today, we observe the elements of an authentic political citizenship, which is diverse, decentred and transnational at the same time. This is exemplified by anti-globalization and social movements, in the missions of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International, in the commitment of certain ecological associations to the COP 21, and via initiatives supporting public aid for migrants, and so on. This is not a citizenship that is expected to gain legal recognition, status, rights or duties as part of a state, but instead one that is called to act, engaging in transnational actions by those Beck calls ‘global public interest entrepreneurs’ (2006). We could also refer to them as global commons actors. This non-state and non-statutory citizenship must be thought of in terms of practices aimed at maintaining or acquiring rights rather than formally granting them. Only such transnational citizenship-in-action can give full meaning to the idea of cosmopolitics: politics for the world, as long as the ‘world’ implies what resonates in the Latin term mundus, namely, not the Earth as a planet and not the totality of individuals living on Earth but instead, the living connection between the individuals inhabiting in and the Earth itself. In this sense, the anti-globalization slogan ‘the world is not for sale’ is more meaningful than it might seem at first sight: the world, in itself, is not a ‘thing’ that we can own; it must be recognized as inappropriable and instituted as a common. 5. Conclusion To conclude, instituting the world as a common cannot be understood as an extension of the nation-state or city-state models at the global level. The democracy of the global commons is irreducible to a mere change of scale. Instead, it requires a genuine collective political invention, which is based on the multiplication of self-government at all levels. What is at stake here is the confrontation between two diametrically opposed logics: whereas the logic of the commons is fundamentally plural, polymorphic, non-centred in nature, the logic of state sovereignty as it was constructed in the West is intrinsically linked to an indivisible and absolute centre of power. The solution is not for several sovereignties to overlap on the same territory, as this would be incompatible with the very notion of sovereignty, but for several types of self-governments to limit each other’s power reciprocally.
Development of space resources is still possible with a commons model. Property rights are not necessary. Existing models governing commons encourage responsible development, numerous examples prove.
Saletta Sterling and Orrman-Rossiter 18 ~Sterling Saletta, Morgan; Orrman-Rossiter, Kevin (2018). Can space mining benefit all of humanity?: The resource fund and citizen's dividend model of Alaska, the ‘last frontier’. Space Policy, (), S0265964616300704–. doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.02.002~ CT The Outer Space Treaty (OST) came into force in 1967 and, having been ratified by all the major space faring governments as well as some 100 other nations, the Outer Space Treaty serves as the basis for international space law, the current corpus juris spatialis. The treaty declares the exploration and use of outer space shall be for, "the benefit and in the interests of all countries ~27~" and that outer space, as mentioned previously, "shall be the province of all mankind ~27~". With the increased commercialization of space, and the entrance of new actors, both national and private, the OST has come under increased scrutiny, with calls to expand, modify, and even to abrogate it ~35,36~. Issues surrounding the mining of celestial bodies have received particular attention and debate ~37~. Of particular concern is the matter of exploitation licences and property rights ~38~. The OST expressly forbids the "national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by other means" ~27~ of outer space and celestial bodies. This is frequently interpreted to mean that the OST denies private property claims in outer space, some authors and individuals ~39–41~ have argued that appropriation by non-nationalentities is allowed. The Outer Space Treaty, and its terrestrial analogues, UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and the Antarctica Treaty System (ATS) are ‘global commons regimes', though the terminology governing these commons differs and juridical concepts such as "common heritage of humanity" found in UNCLOS (and the Moon Treaty of 1979) and the "common province of mankind" found in the Outer Space Treaty have been interpreted in various manners. Due in part to these varying wordings, interpretations and attendant uncertainties, the need for a more comprehensive framework governing the environmental, ethical, and commercial aspects of space exploration, exploitation and colonization has been highlighted by many authors ~30,33,34~. Some advocates for the commercial exploitation of space claim that the absence of property rights is a barrier to such ventures, and in particular to the mining of celestial bodies such as the Moon or near earth asteroids ~35~. Some have gone so far as to suggest an abrogation of the OST in favor of a treaty that allows something like fee-simple ownership and what might best be called a California gold rush approach to outer space resource exploitation ~36–38~. Advocates of this approach would give something like fee-simple ownership of outer space resources on a ‘first in time, first in right’ basis with no clear licensing regime for such activities ~39~. In recent US law, Title IV of H.R. 2262- the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, grants ownership of asteroid resources to entities obtaining them but attempts to walk a fine line between this approach and international treaty obligations. It does not grant ownership of asteroid themselves, and explicitly states that resource exploitation must be in accordance with federal laws and existing treaty obligations, i.e. the OST ~40~. How such eventual exploitation occurs, and under what precise national and international regulatory and licensing regimes, is thus still a matter for the future to decide. On the other hand, it has also been suggested that modifications and additions to the OST based on terrestrial models will provide sufficient guarantee of the right to make profits from the exploitation of outer space resources. Henry Hertzfeld and Frans von der Dunk argue the current regime does not pose a problem for exploitation rights and that terrestrial models would allow private ventures the right to reasonable returns on investment from resource exploitation in space ~41~. Furthermore, in addition to important, and possibly irreconcilable, differences between a California gold rush style approach and the OST ~42~, arguments suggesting fee-simple or similar ownership is necessary for profitable private outer space resource exploitation simply do not stand in the face of contrary evidence from numerous terrestrial examples. These include offshore oil drilling, mining, timber and grazing operations in the United States and internationally which are regularly and profitably undertaken without ownership ~43~. Thus P. M. Sterns and L. I. Tennen argue that the current international regime does provide an adequate framework for commercial development in space, that fee-simple ownership is unnecessary and: "those who advocate the renunciation and abandonment of the nonappropriation principle are either seeking to increase their own bottom line by disingenuous and deceptive constructs, or lack an appropriate appreciation and respect for international processes ~~44~, p. 2439~". Thus, claims that a lack of private property rights in outer space will be a deterrent to commercial resource exploitation ventures in space do not reflect an adequate reflection and analysis of the manner in which current terrestrial practices might be extended into outer space without abrogating the current treaty regime. Nor would a system based on fee simple ownership be likely to tangibly benefit more than a small proportion of the world's population. Instead, the eventual wealth from exploiting celestial bodies would be concentrated in the hands of a few, exacerbating rather than alleviating existing problems for humanity and global sustainable development. The Outer Space Treaty has provided an effective legal framework for the exploration of outer space for over 50 years. Based on the history of treaty regimes governing other international spaces, UNCLOS and the ATS, it seems likely that, in future, additional protocols and agreements will be layered onto the OST and that calls to abrogate and to negotiate a wholly new treaty system are unlikely to succeed. While low participation in the Moon Agreement, also known as the Moon Treaty of 1979, which has not been ratified by either the United States, Russia, or China, has raised questions of legitimacy, it has recently been argued that the Moon Treaty may receive renewed interest in the international community. René Lefeber argues that, far from stifling commercial ventures, the Moon Agreement "provides the best available option for mankind, states and industry to develop space mineral resources in a harmonious way ~~5~, p. 47~", and that, as resource exploitation in outer space now seems likely, the need to elaborate an international regime to prevent conflict over resources may bring other parties to ratify, accede to, or sign the treaty. Ultimately, some form of international governance of outer space as a global commons ~45~ building on the OST and the current corpus juris spatialis seems both more likely and more desirable than an abrogation of the OST and its replacement with an entirely new treaty regime. Thus, an international regime built upon this existing regime will need to be constructed which takes a balanced approach to space exploration, development and exploitation and which encourages entrepreneurial development but also moves beyond vague utopian platitudes to real and concrete benefits for all of humanity.
Underview
Scholarly discourse and engagement with politics is key to effective structural reform - critique is insufficient.
Purdy ’20 - Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy et al, 20 - ("Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis by Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy, David Singh Grewal, Amy Kapczynski, K. Sabeel Rahman :: SSRN," 3-2-2020, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=3547312)//ey/
To embrace the possibility of democratic renewal requires rejecting the terms of the Twentieth-Century Synthesis. We believe that the legal realists—and thinkers in a much longer history of political thought—were right in believing that "the economy" is neither self-defining nor self-justifying. The emphasis in these traditions has been the right one: on power, distribution, and the need for legitimacy as the central themes in the organization of economic life. Moreover, precisely because economic ordering is a political and legal artifact, the idea of an "autonomous" economic domain has always been obscurantist and ideological, even when accepted in good faith.' Law does not and never could simply defer to such a realm. Rather, law is perennially involved in creating and enforcing the terms of economic ordering, most particularly through the creation and maintenance of markets. One of its most important roles, indeed, is determining who is subject to market ordering and on what terms, and who is exempted in favor of other kinds of protection or provision.' Thus the program of law, politics, and institution building often called "neoliberalism" is, and can only be, a specific theory of how to use state power, to what ends, and for whose benefit.' The ideological work of the Twentieth-Century Synthesis has been to naturalize and embed in legal institutions from the Supreme Court to the Antitrust Office and World Trade Organization a specific disposition of power. This power represents a deployment of market ordering that produces intense and cross-cutting forms of inequality and democratic erosion. However, Twentieth-Century Synthesis theorists tend not to see this, precisely because the Synthesis makes it so hard to see (or at least so easy to overlook). If it is to succeed, law and political economy will also require something beyond mere critique. It will require a positive agenda. Many new and energized voices, from the legal academy to political candidates to movement activists, are already building in this direction,' calling for and giving shape to programs for more genuine democracy that also takes seriously questions of economic power and racial subordination;171 more equal distribution of resources and life chances;172 more public and shared resources and infrastructues;173 the displacement of concentrated corporate power and rooting of new forms of worker power;174 the end of mass incarceration and broader contestation of the long history of the criminalization and control of poor people and people of color in building capitalism;175 the recognition of finance and money as public infrastructures;176 the challenges posed by emerging forms of power and control arising from new technologies;177 and the need for a radical new emphasis on ecology.178 These are the materials from which a positive agenda, over time, will be built. Political fights interact generatively with scholarly and policy debates in pointing the way toward a more democratic political economy. The emergence of new grassroots movements, campaigns, and proposals seeking to deepen our democracy is no guarantee of success. But their prevalence and influence make clear the dangers and opportunities of this moment of upheaval—and highlight the stakes of building a new legal imaginary. 179 Neoliberal political economy, with its underlying commitments to efficiency, neutrality, and anti-politics, helped animate, shape, and legitimate a twentieth-century consensus that erased power, encased the market, and reinscribed racialized, economic, and gendered inequities. By contrast, a legal imaginary of democratic political economy, that takes seriously underlying concepts of power, equality, and democracy, can inform a wave of legal thought whose critique and policy imagination can amplify and accelerate these movements for structural reform and, if we are lucky, help remake our polity in more deeply democratic ways.
Reform makes revolution more likely. Rejecting it condescendingly asserts the possibility of radical change is better than the certainty of real improvement.
Delgado ’87 - Delgado, Richard ~teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law. He has written and co-authored numerous articles and books~, "The Ethereal Scholar: Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want?", Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review, 1987 Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental change, they argue, merely postpones the wholesale reformation that must occur to create a decent society.38 Even worse, an unfair social system survives by using piecemeal reform to disguise and legitimize oppression. 39 Those who control the system weaken resistance by pointing to the occasional concession to, or periodic court victory of, a black plaintiff or worker as evidence that the system is fair and just.40 In fact, Crits believe that teaching the common law or using the case method in law school is a disguised means of preaching incrementalism and thereby maintaining the current power structure.41 To avoid this, CLS scholars urge law professors to abandon the case method, give up the effort to find rationality and order in the case law, and teach in an unabashedly political fashion. 42 The CLS critique of piecemeal reform is familiar, imperialistic and wrong. Minorities know from bitter experience that occasional court victories do not mean the Promised Land is at hand.43 The critique is imperialistic in that it tells minorities and other oppressed peoples how they should interpret events affecting them.44 A court order directing a housing authority to disburse funds for heating in subsidized housing may postpone the revolution, or it may not. In the meantime, the order keeps a number of poor families warm. This may mean more to them than it does to a comfortable academic working in a warm office. It smacks of paternalism to assert that the possibility of revolution later outweighs the certainty of heat now, unless there is evidence for that possibility. The Crits do not offer such evidence. Indeed, some incremental changes may bring revolutionary changes closer, not push them further away. Not all small reforms induce complacency; some may whet the appetite for further combat. The welfare family may hold a tenants' union meeting in their heated living room. CLS scholars' critique of piecemeal reform often misses these possibilities, and neglects the question of whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.
Adopt a hybridizing strategy - exploiting contradictions in hegemonic discourse maintains critical distance while effectively challenging the state. Kapoor ‘08
Kapoor, 2008 (Ilan, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, "The Postcolonial Politics of Development," p. 138-139) There are perhaps several other social movement campaigns that could be cited as examples of a ‘hybridizing strategy’.5 But what emerges as important from the Chipko and NBA campaigns is the way in which they treat laws and policies, institutional practices, and ideological apparatuses as deconstructible. That is, they refuse to take dominant authority at face value, and proceed to reveal its contingencies. Sometimes, they expose what the hegemon is trying to disavow or hide (exclusion of affected communities in project design and implementation, faulty information gathering and dissemination). Sometimes, they problematize dominant or naturalized truths (‘development = unlimited economic growth = capitalism’, ‘big is better’, ‘technology can save the environment’). In either case, by contesting, publicizing, and politicizing accepted or hidden truths, they hybridize power, challenging its smugness and triumphalism, revealing its impurities. They show power to be, literally and figuratively, a bastard. While speaking truth to power, a hybridizing strategy also exploits the instabilities of power. In part, this involves showing up and taking advantage of the equivocations of power — conflicting laws, contradictory policies, unfulfilled promises. A lot has to do here with publicly shaming the hegemon, forcing it to remedy injustices and live up to stated commitments in a more accountable and transparent manner. And, in part, this involves nurturing or manipulating the splits and strains within institutions. Such maneuvering can take the form of cultivating allies, forging alliances, or throwing doubt on prevailing orthodoxy. Note, lastly, the way in which a hybridizing strategy works with the dominant discourse. This reflects the negotiative aspect of Bhabha’s performativity. The strategy may outwit the hegemon, but it does so from the interstices of the hegemony. The master may be paralyzed, but his paralysis is induced using his own poison/medicine. It is for this reason that cultivating allies in the adversarial camp is possible: when you speak their language and appeal to their own ethical horizons, you are building a modicum of common ground. It is for this reason also that the master cannot easily dismiss or crush you. Observing his rules and playing his game makes it difficult for him not to take you seriously or grant you a certain legitimacy. The use of non-violent tactics may be crucial in this regard: state repression is easily justified against violent adversaries, but it is vulnerable to public criticism when used against non-violence. Thus, the fact that Chipko and the NBA deployed civil disobedience — pioneered, it must be pointed out, by the ‘father of the nation’ (i.e. Gandhi) — made it difficult for the state to quash them or deflect their claims.
the weight criminal history records can carry in sentencing and unequal prosecutorial charging.
Prison working conditions are terrible—prisoners work in unsafe conditions and accrue thousands of dollars in debt. Eisen 20
Lauren-Brooke Eisen ~director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program where she leads the organization’s work to end mass incarceration~, 20 - ("Covid-19 Highlights the Need for Prison Labor Reform," Brennan Center for Justice, 4-17-2020, accessed 11-4-2021, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/covid-19-highlights-need-prison-labor-reform)//ML For decades, prisoners in American correctional facilities have worked for no wages or mere
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of slave labor that was ostensibly abandoned a century and a half ago.
Prisoners make almost no money for their labor. Fulcher 15
person who has been incarcerated to build his life in free society. ¶
Plan
Plan: The United States ought to recognize the unconditional right of incarcerated workers to strike.
Solvency
The right to strike is key for prisoners hoping to reform the criminal justice system. It allows prison laborers to publicize their conditions and assert their right to dignity
law’s focus on the body, may present yet another avenue to consider.
Incarcerated workers are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation. The right to strike is a key weapon in fighting for better conditions
Kelly 18 ~Kim Kelly is a freelance journalist and organizer based in Philadelphia. Her work on labor, class, politics, and culture has appeared in the New Republic, the Washington Post, the Baffler, and Esquire, among other publications, and she is the author of FIGHT LIKE HELL, a forthcoming book of intersectional labor history. "How the Ongoing Prison Strike is Connected to the Labor Movement". 9-4-2018. Teen Vogue. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/labor-day-2018-how-the-ongoing-prison-strike-is-connected-to-the-labor-movement. Accessed 11-1-2021; MJen~ It’s a tough time to be a worker in America. The Trump administration
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to all, and our fellow workers on the inside are bleeding out.
====Prisoners currently face massive barriers to striking – they get punished and aren’t allowed to unionize Kozlowska 16~Hanna is a reporter on Quartz's investigations team. She previously worked for The New York Times as a writer for NYT Opinion and was a fellow at Foreign Policy magazine. She was also a stringer for the Times in Poland. "US prisoners are going on strike to protest a massive forced labor system". 9-06-2016. Quartz. https://qz.com/777415/an-unprecedented-prison-strike-hopes-to-change-the-fate-of-the-900000-americans-trapped-in-an-exploitative-labor-system/. Accessed 11-1-2021; MJen~==== On Friday (Sept. 9) prison inmates across the US will participate in what organizers are touting as the "largest prison strike in history," stopping work in protest of what many call a modern version of slavery. The protest, organized across 24 states, is spearheaded by the inmate-led Free Alabama Movement (FAM) and coordinated by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), a branch of an international labor union. Its manifesto, published online by "prisoners across the United States," reads: This is a call to end slavery in America…To every prisoner in every state and federal institution across this land, we call on you to stop being a slave, to let the crops rot in the plantation fields, to go on strike and cease reproducing the institutions of your confinement. The strike will be held on the 45th anniversary of the Attica prison revolt, when prisoners took control of a maximum-security correctional facility near Buffalo, New York, demanding better conditions and an end to their brutal treatment. Today, nearly 900,000 US prisoners work while incarcerated. The Bureau of Prisons, which oversees all federal inmates requires that all prisoners (barring medical reasons) work. State prisoners are in the same boat; according to Eric Fink, a professor at Elon Law school, in all or nearly all US states prisoners must work. If they refuse, they can be punished with solitary confinement, revoking visitation, or other measures. Inmates receive very little pay for their labor—in federal prisons it ranges from $0.12 to $0.40 an hour. In some states, like Texas, those held at state prisons receive zero compensation. The majority of inmates work on prison maintenance and upkeep—cleaning, cooking, etc.—but approximately 80,000 do work for the outside world. Sometimes these jobs are the result of government contracts; other times, prisoners end up doing work for private companies such as Victoria’s Secret, Whole Foods or Walmart. Unlike other American workers, these prisoners are not protected by labor laws. They don’t have access to worker’s compensation, they get payed well below the minimum wage, and they cannot effectively form unions. Courts have ruled that because the relationship between prisons and inmates is not that of an employer and a worker, inmates don’t get these labor protections. According to The Nation, there is a faction among the organizers that would rather see prison labor abolished, but IWOC is pushing for inmates to unionize. "Prisoners are the most exploited labor class in this country," says Azzurra Crispino, spokesperson for the organization. The moral case to let prisoners unionize and have the protections given to civilian workers is straightforward: forcing people to work is inhumane, as are the ridiculously low wages and often the labor conditions themselves. The economic case is much more complex. Prisons argue that paying inmates a minimum wage would bankrupt them—in fact, Alex Friedmann, an editor for Prison Legal News told The American Prospect that the criminal justice system would collapse has little potential to significantly add to the GDP, there are longer-term and broader effects to consider. Higher wages can help not only inmates, but their dependents in the outside world, who might avoid ending up on welfare having greater support. Cheap inmate labor may save money for prisons or corporations, but meaningful, decently-paid employment and job training could reduce recidivism and future crime. Ultimately, it’s the taxpayers who pay for most of the criminal justice system, and that means they are subsidizing cheap labor for big corporations instead of investing in reducing crime in the future. In addition to putting pressure on individual institutions, strike organizers are hoping to raise awareness among the public. "Nothing is preventing employers from paying prisoners a decent wage and offering benefits and after 300 years it’s pretty clear it isn’t going to happen on its own. No more than slavery was ended in this country because slave owners got enlightened," said Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News and prisoner rights advocate. "Alas, there is no General Sherman coming to rescue and liberate America’s prison slaves."
Framework
The impact of structural violence cumulatively outweighs – challenging the structures that facilitate inequality is necessary
Ansell 17 - David A. Ansell, Senior Vice President, Associate Provost for Community Health Equity, and Michael E. Kelly Professor of Medicine at Rush University Medical Center (The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills, p. 7-10) There are many different kinds of violence. Some are obvious: punches, attacks
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. And it is wrong because we have the means to fix it.
Underview 1
Scholarly discourse and engagement with politics is key to effective structural reform - critique is insufficient.
Purdy ’20 - Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy et al, 20 - ("Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis by Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy, David Singh Grewal, Amy Kapczynski, K. Sabeel Rahman :: SSRN," 3-2-2020, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=3547312)//ey/
To embrace the possibility of democratic renewal requires rejecting the terms of the
AND
we are lucky, help remake our polity in more deeply democratic ways.
Reform makes revolution more likely. Rejecting it condescendingly asserts the possibility of radical change is better than the certainty of real improvement.
Delgado ’87 - Delgado, Richard ~teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law. He has written and co-authored numerous articles and books~, "The Ethereal Scholar: Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want?", Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review, 1987 Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental change, they argue,
AND
whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.
Adopt a hybridizing strategy - exploiting contradictions in hegemonic discourse maintains critical distance while effectively challenging the state. Kapoor ‘08
Kapoor, 2008 (Ilan, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, "The Postcolonial Politics of Development," p. 138-139) There are perhaps several other social movement campaigns that could be cited as examples of
AND
made it difficult for the state to quash them or deflect their claims.
Using the government as a heuristic is better pragmatically and forces us to truly investigate political structures in search of ways to improve instead of using abstract solutions for concrete impacts.
Zannoti ’13 - Zannoti, Laura, associate professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech., Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2008 and joined the Purdue University faculty in 2009. "Governmentality, Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World", originally published online 30 December 2013, DOI: 10.1177/0304375413512098, P. Sage Publications MC By questioning substantialist representations of power and subjects, inquiries on the possibilities of political
AND
leads not to apathy but to hyper- and pessimistic activism.
Their disads will surely be ridiculous.
(A) Ethics – The state is complicit in perpetuating inequalities that are terrible for incarcerated workers. Apply a VERY high standard of proof to any rationalization of that policy.
(B) Compound Probability - Multiplied probabilities of long link chains have negligible net probabilities. This is the slippery slope fallacy.
(C) Causal Direction - They will say the fractional probability of a huge impact still has a large expected value, but it’s impossible to determine the direction of low-probability links. Does the butterfly flapping its wings cause the hurricane or prevent it? Disregard tiny-probability links because they don’t guide decision-making.
(D) Complexity – the DA presents a simplistic and deterministic narrative that fails to account for the myriad confounding factors that can disrupt or reverse the link chain of the DA. The most important of these is the probability that people will recognize the dangerous path they’re on and change course, e.g. leaders backing down during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
(E) Decision Gridlock – Every course of action or inaction has a negligible possibility of causing extinction. This makes it impossible to prioritize averting existential risk over all else because such risk is unavoidable. We have no choice but to prioritize REALISTIC probabilities.
12/3/21
SO - Covid AC1
Tournament: Jack HoweLong Beach | Round: 1 | Opponent: Brookfield East DJ | Judge: Clark-Villanueva, Leah
I. Vaccine Apartheid
A TRIPS waiver for covid vaccines will not pass in the squo. Baschuk 7/26
," said Thiru Balasubramaniam a managing director at Knowledge Ecology International in Europe.
The only way to solve the pandemic is global vaccination, but current production is woefully short.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT The COVID-19 public health disaster and resulting economic crises won’t end anywhere unless
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must reverse it to speed the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Changing IP laws is key to combatting global health inequality and vaccine apartheid. Rich countries hoard vaccine supply, which means donor models never solve and reinforce colonialism. Harman et al 6/21
Sophie Harman ~professor of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London~, Parsa Erfani ~Fogarty Global Health Fellow at the University of Global Health Equity and a medical student at Harvard Medical School~, Tinashe Goronga ~Community Organiser Equal Health Global Campaign Against Racism at EqualHealth~, Jason Hickel, Michelle Morse, Eugene T Richardson 6/21 - ("Global vaccine equity demands reparative justice — not charity," BMJ Global Health, 6/21/2021, https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/6/e006504)//ML By late April, more than 80 of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines
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the COVID-19 pandemic can be a first step in this direction.
Compulsory licensing is not sufficient – drug company resistance, IP thickets, and devolved decision-making.
Stiglitz and Wallach 4/26 - Joseph E. Stiglitz and Lori Wallach ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences, teaches at Columbia University. Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.~, "Opinion: Preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish," Washington Post (Web). April 26, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/26/preserving-intellectual-property-barriers-covid-19-vaccines-is-morally-wrong-foolish/ AT Unfortunately, the drug companies have consistently done whatever they can to preserve their monopoly
AND
medicines with complex global supply chains, such as covid-19 vaccines.
Vaccine shortfall causes widespread death and poverty.
Public Citizen 3/1 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Backgrounder: WTO-Required Monopolies for Pharmaceutical Corporations Obstruct Global Production of COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatment," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 1, 2021. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/wto-required-monopolies-for-pharmaceutical-corporations-obstruct-global-production-of-covid-19-vaccines-and-treatments/ AT It is obvious that current production capacity cannot supply enough vaccines for the entire world
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income countries’ populations could reduce global losses by $5.5 trillion.
Poverty and disease are mutually reinforcing, causing staggering suffering and injustice.
Hollis and Pogge ’08 - Aidan Hollis ~Associate Professor of Economics, the University of Calgary~ and Thomas Pogge ~Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University~, "The Health Impact Fund Making New Medicines Accessible for All," Incentives for Global Health (2008) AT In 2004, some 970 million people, around 15 percent of the world’s population
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a crucial role in explaining the catastrophic health situation among the global poor.
II. Solvency
Plan text: The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to waive intellectual property protections for Covid-19 related medicines.
term impact on people’s health and the world’s health system would be unprecedented.
A waiver would increase leverage over pharma and provide legal certainty needed to spur critical production.
Stiglitz and Wallach 4/26 - Joseph E. Stiglitz and Lori Wallach ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences, teaches at Columbia University. Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.~, "Opinion: Preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish," Washington Post (Web). April 26, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/26/preserving-intellectual-property-barriers-covid-19-vaccines-is-morally-wrong-foolish/ AT A waiver would immediately increase government leverage over vaccine makers that refuse to license the
AND
the world, as well as diagnostic tests and vaccine supply chain products.
Legal certainty unlocks global production.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT Most critically, there simply is not enough supply to go around now or for
AND
the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
Manufacturing capacity is widespread around the world.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT In the press and on Capitol Hill, Big Pharma is pushing a Big Lie
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the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
III. Framing
The Aff challenges dehumanizing cultural frames that allow us to ignore human suffering. Recognition of common vulnerability is key to a politics that rejects violence, oppression, and indifference.
Butler ’04 - Judith Butler ~Prof. of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley~, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso (2006; First Published 2004). pp. 30-35 AT Is there something to be gained from grieving, from tarrying with grief, from
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also, in the media, for the most part unmarkable and ungrievable.
The Aff challenges the hegemonic ideology of the status quo by rejecting sacrificial rationalizations. That logic is the basis for colonialism, slavery, genocide, war, and global poverty.
Santos 3 2003, Boaventura de Souza Santos is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, "Collective Suicide?", Bad Subjects, Issue ~# 63 , http://www.ces.fe.uc.pt/opiniao/bss/072en.php According to Franz Hinkelammert, the West has repeatedly been under the illusion that it
AND
machine of democracy and liberty turns into a machine of horror and destruction.
Underview 1
Scholarly discourse and engagement with politics is key to effective structural reform - critique is insufficient.
Purdy ’20 - Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy et al, 20 - ("Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis by Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy, David Singh Grewal, Amy Kapczynski, K. Sabeel Rahman :: SSRN," 3-2-2020, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=3547312)//ey/ To embrace the possibility of democratic renewal requires rejecting the terms of the Twentieth-
AND
we are lucky, help remake our polity in more deeply democratic ways.
Adopt a hybridizing strategy - exploiting contradictions in hegemonic discourse maintains critical distance while effectively challenging the state. Kapoor ‘08
Kapoor, 2008 (Ilan, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, "The Postcolonial Politics of Development," p. 138-139) There are perhaps several other social movement campaigns that could be cited as examples of
AND
made it difficult for the state to quash them or deflect their claims.
Using the government as a heuristic is better pragmatically and forces us to truly investigate political structures in search of ways to improve instead of using abstract solutions for concrete impacts.
Zannoti ’13 - Zannoti, Laura, associate professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech., Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2008 and joined the Purdue University faculty in 2009. "Governmentality, Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World", originally published online 30 December 2013, DOI: 10.1177/0304375413512098, P. Sage Publications MC By questioning substantialist representations of power and subjects, inquiries on the possibilities of political
AND
my position leads not to apathy but to hyper- and pessimistic activism.
Reform makes revolution more likely. Rejecting it condescendingly asserts the possibility of radical change is better than the certainty of real improvement.
Delgado ’87 - Delgado, Richard ~teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law. He has written and co-authored numerous articles and books~, "The Ethereal Scholar: Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want?", Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review, 1987 Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental change, they argue,
AND
whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.
," said Thiru Balasubramaniam a managing director at Knowledge Ecology International in Europe.
The only way to solve the pandemic is global vaccination, but current production is woefully short.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT The COVID-19 public health disaster and resulting economic crises won’t end anywhere unless
AND
must reverse it to speed the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Changing IP laws is key to combatting global health inequality and vaccine apartheid. Rich countries hoard vaccine supply, which means donor models never solve and reinforce colonialism. Harman et al 6/21
Sophie Harman ~professor of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London~, Parsa Erfani ~Fogarty Global Health Fellow at the University of Global Health Equity and a medical student at Harvard Medical School~, Tinashe Goronga ~Community Organiser Equal Health Global Campaign Against Racism at EqualHealth~, Jason Hickel, Michelle Morse, Eugene T Richardson 6/21 - ("Global vaccine equity demands reparative justice — not charity," BMJ Global Health, 6/21/2021, https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/6/e006504)//ML By late April, more than 80 of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines
AND
the COVID-19 pandemic can be a first step in this direction.
Compulsory licensing is not sufficient – drug company resistance, IP thickets, and devolved decision-making.
Stiglitz and Wallach 4/26 - Joseph E. Stiglitz and Lori Wallach ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences, teaches at Columbia University. Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.~, "Opinion: Preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish," Washington Post (Web). April 26, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/26/preserving-intellectual-property-barriers-covid-19-vaccines-is-morally-wrong-foolish/ AT Unfortunately, the drug companies have consistently done whatever they can to preserve their monopoly
AND
medicines with complex global supply chains, such as covid-19 vaccines.
Vaccine shortfall causes widespread death and poverty.
Public Citizen 3/1 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Backgrounder: WTO-Required Monopolies for Pharmaceutical Corporations Obstruct Global Production of COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatment," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 1, 2021. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/wto-required-monopolies-for-pharmaceutical-corporations-obstruct-global-production-of-covid-19-vaccines-and-treatments/ AT It is obvious that current production capacity cannot supply enough vaccines for the entire world
AND
income countries’ populations could reduce global losses by $5.5 trillion.
Poverty and disease are mutually reinforcing, causing staggering suffering and injustice.
Hollis and Pogge ’08 - Aidan Hollis ~Associate Professor of Economics, the University of Calgary~ and Thomas Pogge ~Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University~, "The Health Impact Fund Making New Medicines Accessible for All," Incentives for Global Health (2008) AT In 2004, some 970 million people, around 15 percent of the world’s population
AND
a crucial role in explaining the catastrophic health situation among the global poor.
II. Solvency
Plan text: The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to waive intellectual property protections for Covid-19 related medicines.
term impact on people’s health and the world’s health system would be unprecedented.
A waiver would increase leverage over pharma and provide legal certainty needed to spur critical production.
Stiglitz and Wallach 4/26 - Joseph E. Stiglitz and Lori Wallach ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences, teaches at Columbia University. Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.~, "Opinion: Preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish," Washington Post (Web). April 26, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/26/preserving-intellectual-property-barriers-covid-19-vaccines-is-morally-wrong-foolish/ AT A waiver would immediately increase government leverage over vaccine makers that refuse to license the
AND
the world, as well as diagnostic tests and vaccine supply chain products.
Legal certainty unlocks global production.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT Most critically, there simply is not enough supply to go around now or for
AND
the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
Manufacturing capacity is widespread around the world.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT In the press and on Capitol Hill, Big Pharma is pushing a Big Lie
AND
the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
III. Framing
The Aff challenges dehumanizing cultural frames that allow us to ignore human suffering. Recognition of common vulnerability is key to a politics that rejects violence, oppression, and indifference.
Butler ’04 - Judith Butler ~Prof. of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley~, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso (2006; First Published 2004). pp. 30-35 AT Is there something to be gained from grieving, from tarrying with grief, from
AND
also, in the media, for the most part unmarkable and ungrievable.
The Aff challenges the hegemonic ideology of the status quo by rejecting sacrificial rationalizations. That logic is the basis for colonialism, slavery, genocide, war, and global poverty.
Santos 3 2003, Boaventura de Souza Santos is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, "Collective Suicide?", Bad Subjects, Issue ~# 63 , http://www.ces.fe.uc.pt/opiniao/bss/072en.php According to Franz Hinkelammert, the West has repeatedly been under the illusion that it
AND
machine of democracy and liberty turns into a machine of horror and destruction.
Underview 1
Only consequentialism explains degrees of wrongness—if I break a promise to meet up for lunch, that is not as bad as breaking a promise to take a dying person to the hospital. Only the consequences of breaking the promise explain why the second one is much worse than the first. Intuitions outweigh—they’re the foundational basis for any argument and theories that contradict our intuitions are most likely false even if we can’t deductively determine why.
Scholarly discourse and engagement with politics is key to effective structural reform - critique is insufficient.
Purdy ’20 - Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy et al, 20 - ("Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis by Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy, David Singh Grewal, Amy Kapczynski, K. Sabeel Rahman :: SSRN," 3-2-2020, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=3547312)//ey/ To embrace the possibility of democratic renewal requires rejecting the terms of the Twentieth-
AND
we are lucky, help remake our polity in more deeply democratic ways.
Reform makes revolution more likely. Rejecting it condescendingly asserts the possibility of radical change is better than the certainty of real improvement.
Delgado ’87 - Delgado, Richard ~teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law. He has written and co-authored numerous articles and books~, "The Ethereal Scholar: Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want?", Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review, 1987 Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental change, they argue,
AND
whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.
10/11/21
SO - Covid AC3
Tournament: Jack HoweLong Beach | Round: Doubles | Opponent: Leonard Mokroski | Judge: idek
I. Vaccine Apartheid
A TRIPS waiver for covid vaccines will not pass in the squo. Baschauk 7/26
," said Thiru Balasubramaniam a managing director at Knowledge Ecology International in Europe.
The only way to solve the pandemic is global vaccination, but current production is woefully short.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT The COVID-19 public health disaster and resulting economic crises won’t end anywhere unless
AND
must reverse it to speed the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Changing IP laws is key to combatting global health inequality and vaccine apartheid. Rich countries hoard vaccine supply, which means donor models never solve and reinforce colonialism. Harman et al 6/21
Sophie Harman ~professor of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London~, Parsa Erfani ~Fogarty Global Health Fellow at the University of Global Health Equity and a medical student at Harvard Medical School~, Tinashe Goronga ~Community Organiser Equal Health Global Campaign Against Racism at EqualHealth~, Jason Hickel, Michelle Morse, Eugene T Richardson 6/21 - ("Global vaccine equity demands reparative justice — not charity," BMJ Global Health, 6/21/2021, https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/6/e006504)//ML By late April, more than 80 of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines
AND
the COVID-19 pandemic can be a first step in this direction.
Compulsory licensing is not sufficient – drug company resistance, IP thickets, and devolved decision-making.
Stiglitz and Wallach 4/26 - Joseph E. Stiglitz and Lori Wallach ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences, teaches at Columbia University. Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.~, "Opinion: Preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish," Washington Post (Web). April 26, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/26/preserving-intellectual-property-barriers-covid-19-vaccines-is-morally-wrong-foolish/ AT Unfortunately, the drug companies have consistently done whatever they can to preserve their monopoly
AND
medicines with complex global supply chains, such as covid-19 vaccines.
Vaccine shortfall causes widespread death and poverty.
Public Citizen 3/1 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Backgrounder: WTO-Required Monopolies for Pharmaceutical Corporations Obstruct Global Production of COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatment," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 1, 2021. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/wto-required-monopolies-for-pharmaceutical-corporations-obstruct-global-production-of-covid-19-vaccines-and-treatments/ AT It is obvious that current production capacity cannot supply enough vaccines for the entire world
AND
income countries’ populations could reduce global losses by $5.5 trillion.
Poverty and disease are mutually reinforcing, causing staggering suffering and injustice.
Hollis and Pogge ’08 - Aidan Hollis ~Associate Professor of Economics, the University of Calgary~ and Thomas Pogge ~Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University~, "The Health Impact Fund Making New Medicines Accessible for All," Incentives for Global Health (2008) AT In 2004, some 970 million people, around 15 percent of the world’s population
AND
a crucial role in explaining the catastrophic health situation among the global poor.
II. Solvency
Plan text: The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to waive intellectual property protections for Covid-19 related medicines.
term impact on people’s health and the world’s health system would be unprecedented.
A waiver would increase leverage over pharma and provide legal certainty needed to spur critical production.
Stiglitz and Wallach 4/26 - Joseph E. Stiglitz and Lori Wallach ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences, teaches at Columbia University. Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.~, "Opinion: Preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish," Washington Post (Web). April 26, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/26/preserving-intellectual-property-barriers-covid-19-vaccines-is-morally-wrong-foolish/ AT A waiver would immediately increase government leverage over vaccine makers that refuse to license the
AND
the world, as well as diagnostic tests and vaccine supply chain products.
Legal certainty unlocks global production.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT Most critically, there simply is not enough supply to go around now or for
AND
the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
Manufacturing capacity is widespread around the world.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT In the press and on Capitol Hill, Big Pharma is pushing a Big Lie
AND
the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
III. Framing
The Aff challenges dehumanizing cultural frames that allow us to ignore human suffering. Recognition of common vulnerability is key to a politics that rejects violence, oppression, and indifference.
Butler ’04 - Judith Butler ~Prof. of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley~, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso (2006; First Published 2004). pp. 30-35 AT Is there something to be gained from grieving, from tarrying with grief, from
AND
also, in the media, for the most part unmarkable and ungrievable.
The Aff challenges the hegemonic ideology of the status quo by rejecting sacrificial rationalizations. That logic is the basis for colonialism, slavery, genocide, war, and global poverty.
Santos 3 2003, Boaventura de Souza Santos is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, "Collective Suicide?", Bad Subjects, Issue ~# 63 , http://www.ces.fe.uc.pt/opiniao/bss/072en.php According to Franz Hinkelammert, the West has repeatedly been under the illusion that it
AND
machine of democracy and liberty turns into a machine of horror and destruction.
Underview 1
Only consequentialism explains degrees of wrongness—if I break a promise to meet up for lunch, that is not as bad as breaking a promise to take a dying person to the hospital. Only the consequences of breaking the promise explain why the second one is much worse than the first. Intuitions outweigh—they’re the foundational basis for any argument and theories that contradict our intuitions are most likely false even if we can’t deductively determine why.
Scholarly discourse and engagement with politics is key to effective structural reform - critique is insufficient.
Purdy ’20 - Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy et al, 20 - ("Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis by Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy, David Singh Grewal, Amy Kapczynski, K. Sabeel Rahman :: SSRN," 3-2-2020, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=3547312)//ey/ To embrace the possibility of democratic renewal requires rejecting the terms of the Twentieth-
AND
we are lucky, help remake our polity in more deeply democratic ways.
Adopt a hybridizing strategy - exploiting contradictions in hegemonic discourse maintains critical distance while effectively challenging the state. Kapoor ‘08
Kapoor, 2008 (Ilan, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, "The Postcolonial Politics of Development," p. 138-139)
There are perhaps several other social movement campaigns that could be cited as examples of a ‘hybridizing strategy’.5 But what emerges as important from the Chipko and NBA campaigns is the way in which they treat laws and policies, institutional practices, and ideological apparatuses as deconstructible. That is, they refuse to take dominant authority at face value, and proceed to reveal its contingencies. Sometimes, they expose what the hegemon is trying to disavow or hide (exclusion of affected communities in project design and implementation, faulty information gathering and dissemination). Sometimes, they problematize dominant or naturalized truths (‘development
unlimited economic growth = capitalism’, ‘big is better’, ‘technology can save the environment’). In either case, by contesting, publicizing, and politicizing accepted or hidden truths, they hybridize power, challenging its smugness and triumphalism, revealing its impurities. They show power to be, literally and figuratively, a bastard. While speaking truth to power, a hybridizing strategy also exploits the instabilities of power. In part, this involves showing up and taking advantage of the equivocations of power — conflicting laws, contradictory policies, unfulfilled promises. A lot has to do here with publicly shaming the hegemon, forcing it to remedy injustices and live up to stated commitments in a more accountable and transparent manner. And, in part, this involves nurturing or manipulating the splits and strains within institutions. Such maneuvering can take the form of cultivating allies, forging alliances, or throwing doubt on prevailing orthodoxy. Note, lastly, the way in which a hybridizing strategy works with the dominant discourse. This reflects the negotiative aspect of Bhabha’s performativity. The strategy may outwit the hegemon, but it does so from the interstices of the hegemony. The master may be paralyzed, but his paralysis is induced using his own poison/medicine. It is for this reason that cultivating allies in the adversarial camp is possible: when you speak their language and appeal to their own ethical horizons, you are building a modicum of common ground. It is for this reason also that the master cannot easily dismiss or crush you. Observing his rules and playing his game makes it difficult for him not to take you seriously or grant you a certain legitimacy. The use of non-violent tactics may be crucial in this regard: state repression is easily justified against violent adversaries, but it is vulnerable to public criticism when used against non-violence. Thus, the fact that Chipko and the NBA deployed civil disobedience — pioneered, it must be Reform makes revolution more likely. Rejecting it condescendingly asserts the possibility of radical change is better than the certainty of real improvement.==== Delgado ’87 - Delgado, Richard ~teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law. He has written and co-authored numerous articles and books~, "The Ethereal Scholar: Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want?", Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review, 1987 Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental change, they argue,
AND
whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.
," said Thiru Balasubramaniam a managing director at Knowledge Ecology International in Europe.
The only way to solve the pandemic is global vaccination, but current production is woefully short.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT The COVID-19 public health disaster and resulting economic crises won’t end anywhere unless
AND
must reverse it to speed the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Changing IP laws is key to combatting global health inequality and vaccine apartheid. Rich countries hoard vaccine supply, which means donor models never solve and reinforce colonialism. Harman et al 6/21
Sophie Harman ~professor of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London~, Parsa Erfani ~Fogarty Global Health Fellow at the University of Global Health Equity and a medical student at Harvard Medical School~, Tinashe Goronga ~Community Organiser Equal Health Global Campaign Against Racism at EqualHealth~, Jason Hickel, Michelle Morse, Eugene T Richardson 6/21 - ("Global vaccine equity demands reparative justice — not charity," BMJ Global Health, 6/21/2021, https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/6/e006504)//ML By late April, more than 80 of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines
AND
the COVID-19 pandemic can be a first step in this direction.
Vaccine shortfall causes widespread death and poverty.
Public Citizen 3/1 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Backgrounder: WTO-Required Monopolies for Pharmaceutical Corporations Obstruct Global Production of COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatment," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 1, 2021. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/wto-required-monopolies-for-pharmaceutical-corporations-obstruct-global-production-of-covid-19-vaccines-and-treatments/ AT It is obvious that current production capacity cannot supply enough vaccines for the entire world
AND
income countries’ populations could reduce global losses by $5.5 trillion.
Poverty and disease are mutually reinforcing, causing staggering suffering and injustice.
Hollis and Pogge ’08 - Aidan Hollis ~Associate Professor of Economics, the University of Calgary~ and Thomas Pogge ~Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University~, "The Health Impact Fund Making New Medicines Accessible for All," Incentives for Global Health (2008) AT In 2004, some 970 million people, around 15 percent of the world’s population
AND
a crucial role in explaining the catastrophic health situation among the global poor.
II. Solvency
Plan text: The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to waive intellectual property protections for Covid-19 related medicines.
term impact on people’s health and the world’s health system would be unprecedented.
A waiver would increase leverage over pharma and provide legal certainty needed to spur critical production.
Stiglitz and Wallach 4/26 - Joseph E. Stiglitz and Lori Wallach ~Joseph E. Stiglitz, co-recipient of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Sciences, teaches at Columbia University. Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.~, "Opinion: Preserving intellectual property barriers to covid-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish," Washington Post (Web). April 26, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/26/preserving-intellectual-property-barriers-covid-19-vaccines-is-morally-wrong-foolish/ AT A waiver would immediately increase government leverage over vaccine makers that refuse to license the
AND
the world, as well as diagnostic tests and vaccine supply chain products.
Legal certainty unlocks global production.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT Most critically, there simply is not enough supply to go around now or for
AND
the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
Manufacturing capacity is widespread around the world.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT In the press and on Capitol Hill, Big Pharma is pushing a Big Lie
AND
the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
III. Framing
The Aff challenges dehumanizing cultural frames that allow us to ignore human suffering. Recognition of common vulnerability is key to a politics that rejects violence, oppression, and indifference.
Butler ’04 - Judith Butler ~Prof. of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley~, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso (2006; First Published 2004). pp. 30-35 AT Is there something to be gained from grieving, from tarrying with grief, from
AND
also, in the media, for the most part unmarkable and ungrievable.
The Aff challenges the hegemonic ideology of the status quo by rejecting sacrificial rationalizations. That logic is the basis for colonialism, slavery, genocide, war, and global poverty.
Santos 3 2003, Boaventura de Souza Santos is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, "Collective Suicide?", Bad Subjects, Issue ~# 63 , http://www.ces.fe.uc.pt/opiniao/bss/072en.php According to Franz Hinkelammert, the West has repeatedly been under the illusion that it
AND
machine of democracy and liberty turns into a machine of horror and destruction.
Underview 1
the negative has a burden to defend the status quo or a competitive alternative to the AC. Do not vote on truth-testing offense or frameworks that exclude weighing the aff.
A. Real-World:
Debate should be about deciding a course of action because that’s the most portable skill, effects every decision we ever make – scholarship in a vacuum leads to endless questioning which undermines the ability to actualize change. 2. You can make the same phil args on every topic. The unique education of debate comes from researching the nuances of a new topic, which their interp means they never have to do.====
B. Burden-Skew: There are unlimited assumptions in any truth statement – the aff can’t possibly be prepared to defend all of them. Under their interp the neg would win every debate, and nobody would play a rigged game.
C. Engagement: Unlimited semantic assumptions means the Aff has no hope of researching and responding to them, and the neg is just going to go for an argument that wasn’t substantively answered.
D. Skew – obviating the 1AC means the neg gets a 13-7 time advantage which makes it impossible to affirm
Reform makes revolution more likely. Rejecting it condescendingly asserts the possibility of radical change is better than the certainty of real improvement.
Delgado ’87 - Delgado, Richard ~teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law. He has written and co-authored numerous articles and books~, "The Ethereal Scholar: Does Critical Legal Studies Have What Minorities Want?", Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review, 1987 Critical scholars reject the idea of piecemeal reform. Incremental change, they argue,
AND
whether total change, when it comes, will be what we want.
Decision Gridlock – Every course of action or inaction has a negligible possibility of causing extinction. This makes it impossible to prioritize averting existential risk over all else because such risk is unavoidable. We have no choice but to prioritize REALISTIC probabilities.
Apocalyptic rhetoric is an independent voter – justifies violence, trades off with addressing real risks, and causes nihilism.
Pinker ’18 - Steven Pinker ~Johnston Professor of Psychology, Harvard U.~, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. New York: Viking. (2018). pp. 291-292 At first glance one might think that the more thought we give to existential risks
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fear that civilization may implode and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Distrust low-probability predictions of catastrophe – subjectivity, cognitive bias, and history of failed predictions.
Pinker ’18 - Steven Pinker ~Johnston Professor of Psychology, Harvard U.~, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. New York: Viking. (2018). pp. 292-295 Of course, people’s emotions are irrelevant if the risks are real. But risk
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but it reminds us that we are vulnerable to techno-apocalyptic delusions.
10/11/21
SO - Doctors wo Borders
Tournament: Presentation | Round: 1 | Opponent: Notre Dame San Jose AG | Judge: Ben Cortez
Advantage
IP undermines competition and keeps medicine prices high.
MSF ’17 – Médecins Sans Frontières ~Doctors Without Borders - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters.~, "A Fair Shot for Vaccine Affordability: Understanding and addressing the effects of patents on access to newer vaccines," September, 2017. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/VAC'report'A20Fair20Shot20for20Vaccine20Affordability'ENG'2017.pdf AT Intellectual property undermines competition and keeps prices high¶ As MSF has seen repeatedly for
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technical know-how and an accurate assessment of the vaccine patent landscape.
Millions, including many children, die from pneumonia and HPV, but low-income countries and families can’t afford the vaccines to prevent them.
MSF ’17 – Médecins Sans Frontières ~Doctors Without Borders - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters.~, "A Fair Shot for Vaccine Affordability: Understanding and addressing the effects of patents on access to newer vaccines," September, 2017. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/VAC'report'A20Fair20Shot20for20Vaccine20Affordability'ENG'2017.pdf AT Through our operations, MSF teams vaccinate thousands of vulnerable children each year against pneumonia
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example in the Philippines, and is preparing to do so in Zimbabwe.
Poverty and disease are mutually reinforcing, causing staggering suffering and injustice.
Hollis and Pogge ’08 - Aidan Hollis ~Associate Professor of Economics, the University of Calgary~ and Thomas Pogge ~Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University~, "The Health Impact Fund Making New Medicines Accessible for All," Incentives for Global Health (2008) AT In 2004, some 970 million people, around 15 percent of the world’s population
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a crucial role in explaining the catastrophic health situation among the global poor.
We have a duty to assist others when the tradeoff is morally insignificant. This simple precept is more compelling than arcane moral reasoning or tortured negative fantasizing about remote catastrophes. If you came across a drowning child, would you wade in to save them or contemplate the possibility that you might cause nuclear war?
Singer ’72 - Peter Singer ~Prof. Bioethics at Princeton~ "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 Spring 1972 AT My next point is this: if it is in our power to prevent something
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cases in which I am just one among millions in the same position.
Solvency
The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to reduce intellectual property protections for medicines using the mechanisms described by MSF ’17:
MSF ’17 – Médecins Sans Frontières ~Doctors Without Borders - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters.~, "A Fair Shot for Vaccine Affordability: Understanding and addressing the effects of patents on access to newer vaccines," September, 2017. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/VAC'report'A20Fair20Shot20for20Vaccine20Affordability'ENG'2017.pdf AT Countries can take a variety of steps to promote competition in vaccine manufacturing and help
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facilitate follow-on development and foster robust competition for new vaccines.75
The neoliberal drive to privatization created the tragedy of the anti-commons, stifling innovation through excessive protection of ever more segmented intellectual property.
Heller and Eisenberg ’98 - Michael Heller ~Prof. of Property Law, Columbia Law School~ and Rebecca S. Eisenberg ~Prof. of Patent Law, Michigan Law~, "Can Patents Deter Innovation? The Anticommons in Biomedical Research," SCIENCE, VOL. 280, P. 698, 1998 (1998). https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty'scholarship/1158 AT Since Hardin’s article appeared, biomedical research has been moving from a commons model toward
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, adding to the cost and slowing the pace of downstream biomedical innovation.
The Aff challenges dehumanizing cultural frames that allow us to ignore human suffering. Recognition of common vulnerability is key to a politics that rejects violence, oppression, and indifference.
Butler ’04 - Judith Butler ~Prof. of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley~, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso (2006; First Published 2004). pp. 30-35 AT Is there something to be gained from grieving, from tarrying with grief, from
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also, in the media, for the most part unmarkable and ungrievable.
Underview 1
Prioritize probability.
Kessler 08 (Oliver; April 2008; PhD in IR, professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld, and professor of history and theory of IR at the Faculty of Arts; Alternatives, Vol. 33, "From Insecurity to Uncertainty: Risk and the Paradox of Security Politics" p. 211-232) The problem of the second method is that it is very difficult to "calculate
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prevail than in situations where security problems can be assessed with relative certainty.
Scholarly discourse and engagement with politics is key to effective structural reform - critique is insufficient.
Purdy ’20 - Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy et al, 20 - ("Building a Law-and-Political-Economy Framework: Beyond the Twentieth-Century Synthesis by Jedediah S. Britton-Purdy, David Singh Grewal, Amy Kapczynski, K. Sabeel Rahman :: SSRN," 3-2-2020, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=3547312)//ey/ To embrace the possibility of democratic renewal requires rejecting the terms of the Twentieth-
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we are lucky, help remake our polity in more deeply democratic ways.
Adopt a hybridizing strategy - exploiting contradictions in hegemonic discourse maintains critical distance while effectively challenging the state. Kapoor ‘08
Kapoor, 2008 (Ilan, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, "The Postcolonial Politics of Development," p. 138-139) There are perhaps several other social movement campaigns that could be cited as examples of
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made it difficult for the state to quash them or deflect their claims.
(A) Compound Probability - Multiplied probabilities of long link chains have negligible net probabilities. This is the slippery slope fallacy.
(B) Causal Direction - They will say the fractional probability of a huge impact still has a large expected value, but it’s impossible to determine the direction of low-probability links. Does the butterfly flapping its wings cause the hurricane or prevent it? Disregard tiny-probability links because they don’t guide decision-making.
(C) No infinite-risk analysis. Low-probability existential threats can’t be compared, and are so unlikely that a reasonable decision-maker can ignore them.
Dolley ’86 - Steven D. Dolley ~University of Vermont~, "APOCALYPSE WHEN?:Determining and Comparing Catastrophic Risks," Fertile Ground : The Agriculture Debate (1986). AT
The impact is absolute. Any risk is enough.¶ Many disasters such
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. So, excuse me for a moment; the music has stopped.
I affirm – Resolved: The member nations of the World Trade Organization ought to reduce intellectual property protections for medicines.
Because the resolution asks what we ought to do, my value is Morality.
The criterion for determining morality is minimizing suffering. No coherent theory of justice or morality can deny that suffering is morally bad. Each of us knows from our own experiences that suffering is a moral evil, and that other people experience suffering in the same way we do. Therefore, if we regard everyone’s pain as morally equal, we are obligated to minimize the amount of suffering people experience.
Moreover, maximizing utility is the only way to affirm equal and unconditional human dignity.
Cummiskey ’90 - David Cummiskey. ~Associate Philosophy Professor at Bates College~.Kantian Consequentialism. Ethics, Vol. 100, No. 3. 1990. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381810. We must not obscure the issue by characterizing this type of case as the sacrifice
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equal consideration suggests that one may have to sacrifice some to save many.
Contention 1: Covid-19
The only way to solve the pandemic is global vaccination, but current production is woefully short.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT The COVID-19 public health disaster and resulting economic crises won’t end anywhere unless
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must reverse it to speed the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The vaccine shortfall causes widespread death and poverty.
Public Citizen 3/1 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Backgrounder: WTO-Required Monopolies for Pharmaceutical Corporations Obstruct Global Production of COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatment," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 1, 2021. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/wto-required-monopolies-for-pharmaceutical-corporations-obstruct-global-production-of-covid-19-vaccines-and-treatments/ AT It is obvious that current production capacity cannot supply enough vaccines for the entire world
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income countries’ populations could reduce global losses by $5.5 trillion.
A waiver provides legal certainty that unlocks global production.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT Most critically, there simply is not enough supply to go around now or for
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the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
Manufacturing capacity is widespread around the world.
Public Citizen 3/29 - Public Citizen ~"Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people – not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country. We don’t participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates for elected office. We take no government or corporate money, which enables us to remain fiercely independent and call out bad actors – no matter who they are or how much power and money they have."~, "Waiver of the WTO’s Intellectual Property Rules: Facts vs. Common Myths," Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Series. March 29, 2021. Accessed Aug. 10, 2021. https://www.citizen.org/article/waiver-of-the-wtos-intellectual-property-rules-myths-vs-facts/ AT In the press and on Capitol Hill, Big Pharma is pushing a Big Lie
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the platform that, for instance, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine uses.
Contention II: Innovation
Limiting IP protections increases the incentive to create new drugs.
Light and Warburton ’11 - Donald W. Light ~Visiting professor at Stanford University and a professor of comparative health-care at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He is an economic and organizational sociologist who studies health care systems and pharmaceu- tical policy.~ and Rebecca Warburton ~associate professor and a health economist, specializing in the cost- benefit analysis of health-related public projects. Her current research primarily concerns assessing the validity of industry-sponsored estimates of the cost of drug development, and assessing the costs and effects of patient safety improvements. She has a PhD in economics from the University of London (1995), and an M.Sc. in economics from the London School of Economics (1980); School of Public Administration, University of Victoria, British Columbia~, "Demythologizing the high costs of pharmaceutical research BioSocieties (2011) 6, 34–50. doi:10.1057/biosoc.2010.40; published online 7 February 2011. JH Industry executives, well supplied with facts and figures by the industry’s global press network
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reports and to be illogical as well (Light and Lexchin, 2005).
IP stifles innovation by allowing firms to prevent new competition from entering the market, driving down the incentive for R and D.
MSF ’17 – Médecins Sans Frontières ~Doctors Without Borders - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters.~, "A Fair Shot for Vaccine Affordability: Understanding and addressing the effects of patents on access to newer vaccines," September, 2017. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/VAC'report'A20Fair20Shot20for20Vaccine20Affordability'ENG'2017.pdf AT Patents are increasingly an issue for development of newer vaccines Patent activity in the
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the ability of potential competitor vaccine manufacturers to develop or sell competitor vaccines.
Pharmaceutical innovation is key to protecting against future pandemics, bioterrorism, and antibiotic resistance.
Marjanovic and Fejiao ‘20 Marjanovic, Sonja, and Carolina Feijao. Sonja Marjanovic, Ph.D., Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Carolina Feijao, Ph.D. in biochemistry, University of Cambridge; M.Sc. in quantitive biology, Imperial College London; B.Sc. in biology, University of Lisbon. "Pharmaceutical Innovation for Infectious Disease Management: From Troubleshooting to Sustainable Models of Engagement." (2020). ~Quality Control~ As key actors in the healthcare innovation landscape, pharmaceutical and life sci-ences
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health threats to an even greater extent under improved innova-tion conditions.
Pandemics cause extinction – burnout wrong
Kerscher 14—Professor, unclear where because every website about him is in German (Karl-Heinz, "Space Education", Wissenschaftliche Studie, 2014, 92 Seiten) The death toll for a pandemic is equal to the virulence, the deadliness of
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which makes the possibility of global pandemic a realistic threat to human civilization.
could save huge numbers of lives, scientists working at his foundation believe.
Contention 3: Medicine Prices
IP undermines competition and keeps medicine prices high.
MSF ’17 – Médecins Sans Frontières ~Doctors Without Borders - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters.~, "A Fair Shot for Vaccine Affordability: Understanding and addressing the effects of patents on access to newer vaccines," September, 2017. Accessed Aug. 12, 2021. https://msfaccess.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/VAC'report'A20Fair20Shot20for20Vaccine20Affordability'ENG'2017.pdf AT Intellectual property undermines competition and keeps prices high¶ As MSF has seen repeatedly for
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technical know-how and an accurate assessment of the vaccine patent landscape.
Poverty and disease are mutually reinforcing, causing staggering suffering and injustice.
Hollis and Pogge ’08 - Aidan Hollis ~Associate Professor of Economics, the University of Calgary~ and Thomas Pogge ~Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University~, "The Health Impact Fund Making New Medicines Accessible for All," Incentives for Global Health (2008) AT In 2004, some 970 million people, around 15 percent of the world’s population
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a crucial role in explaining the catastrophic health situation among the global poor.