From disorder to harm? Governing the Moon and protecting its sites of interest

We're really pleased to announce that OpenSpace member, Alessandra Marino, has just published a new paper 'From disorder to harm? Governing the Moon and protecting its sites of interest'. It is part of the Global (Dis)Order international policy programme ran by the British Academy and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Abstract: This paper synthesises literature from geography, law, planetary science and astrobiology on the protection of sites of interest on the Moon and discusses possibilities for more effective environmental governance in space. First, it takes stock of the drivers of current disorder in lunar exploration activities. It looks at the fragmentation of the international legal order, identifies shortcomings of current regulatory frameworks, and demonstrates that the siloing of disciplinary knowledge about the Moon is an obstacle to robust governance proposals. The paper’s four objectives are: (i) to review literature on the safeguard of sites of interest on the Moon, discussing different stakeholders’ interests; (ii) to systematise knowledge on existing and envisaged mechanisms for environmental governance of lunar sites of scientific interest; (iii) to summarise the possible use of analogues from governance on Earth; (iv) finally, to sugest directions and principles for sustainable and equitable lunar governance.