'Unacceptable to our people': Diverse cultural beliefs, Indigenous rights, and the future of human activities on the Moon
John C. Barentine

TL;DR
This paper explores the intersection of Indigenous rights and commercial activities on the Moon, highlighting legal, ethical, and cultural challenges in space governance and proposing more inclusive future frameworks.
Contribution
It analyzes historical and legal contexts to suggest that future space governance should involve co-creation with Indigenous societies rather than mere consultations.
Findings
Indigenous perspectives are often overlooked in space activities.
Current legal frameworks are rooted in Western colonial histories.
Inclusive governance models are necessary for just space exploration.
Abstract
The human presence in outer space is undergoing a transition from one in which nation states are the dominant actors to an emerging status quo in which states merely supervise the activities of private entities. Such largely commercial ventures include extracting natural materials from the Moon, a celestial body of great cultural and spiritual reverence for some Indigenous societies. However, the existing international legal framework governing activities in space focuses on its "exploration and use", centered in a Western worldview that attaches to a past history of colonialism. While that framework, articulated in the Outer Space Treaty (OST), claims to guarantee that outer space will remain "the province of all [hu]mankind," only entities with significant political power have to date decided the limits of the acceptable uses of space. This paper examines the historical record for…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
