Uncommon Commons, Commodities and Tokens in Outer Space: A Critical Viewpoint on New Competition Issues

Abstract

ABSTRACT This viewpoint essay addresses salient issues raised by the commodification of space resources, and the shifting legal frameworks struggling to adapt and to evolve on par with the rapid developments of the economy and the commercial aspects of the space sector, and, particularly, with the competition law problems arising from these developments. In this context, this paper address antitrust issues of emerging commercial space law (lex mercatoria spatialis) rooted in cyber infrastructure, such as decentralized distributed technology (DLT), which is especially prone to concentration and consortium-building dynamics. This consolidated tokenization of space resources and rights, via dematerialized layers of processes and loopholes, can be kept in check by a space antitrust framework based on axioms and tenets reminiscent of the ethical principles as enshrined within the regime of international space law (corpus juris spatialis) to be pursued under the philosophy of an academic perspective antitrust philosophy called “noble competition” as first proposed by Stucke and Ezrachi. The authors posit that the space sector is the perfect arena to test such a new framework.