Recent Articles in Volume 91, Issue 2 (2026)
By Binbin Guo – As commercial space activities move from state-led exploration to market operations, outer space is changing from a mission space into a workspace. As a result, the traditional connecting point for employment taxes, centered on the workplace, begins to lose force. This Article develops the concept of outer space employment taxation and argues that its key issue is not taxation in orbit, but enforceability. International space law does not directly provide the tax base, tax rates, or specific withholding rules. But through state responsibility, authorization and continuing supervision, and registration coupled with jurisdiction and control, it already provides institutional interfaces through which employment taxes may be embedded in commercial space activities. On that basis, this Article builds a matrix of connecting points in three categories: actor connecting points, procedural connecting points, and money and information connecting points. []
By Maitland Rames – As governments plan to expand into outer space and private parties continue to participate in space operations, the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (Outer Space Treaty) has the potential to inhibit any ambitions for all but the most basic exploratory missions. That is because Article II of the Outer Space Treaty forbids national appropriation in space, which calls into question the legality of any infrastructure and land use in space. This uncertainty has far-reaching implications for the future economy of space. Fortunately, a compelling solution lies in the proposal for an international resource management regime that can bring land use on another planet into compliance with the Outer Space Treaty. However, it is important to consider that much of the activity in space will fall within the realm of public-private partnerships, and the aforementioned space regime will present unique problems at the intersection of public contracts law and space law. []
By Kody George – Currently, the laws governing property in outer space are inadequate and underdeveloped, yet space exploration by private entities is rapidly growing. In this legal vacuum, private companies’ actions heavily influence, and in some cases, provide the basis for, legal precedent. The policies that for-profit corporations prefer are different from those that most government actors will prefer and are much different from those that support the common heritage of mankind doctrine. Rewarding entrepreneurship, innovation, and investments by governments, while balancing the interest all mankind has in outer space is why this Article proposes a tiered, patent land system that would grant private entities, governments, and humanity (in the form of a global trust) the property rights of space resources for a set period of time before the rights pass to the next group. Many papers have analyzed certain aspects of property rights in outer space, but this Article analyzes the issue from a different perspective: comparing it to westward expansion in the United States. []
By Steven E. Bartz – Most of the law governing outer space is public international law, which applies, with limited exceptions, directly to nation-states (states) only. The application of international law to nongovernmental entities’ (NGEs), such as natural persons and companies with distinct legal personage, activities in outer space occurs through a state’s domestic legal implementation of that international law. The United States is a party to several treaties that govern the exploration and use of outer space (the Applicable Treaties), which, through the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, become “the supreme Law of the Land.” The Applicable Treaties were written and went into effect when only states operated in outer space. When U.S. NGEs eventually began conducting non-national activities in outer space, the global and U.S. legal frameworks and associated regulatory apparatus, designed for the direct and indirect conduct of states’ national activities in outer space, were applied to NGEs’ non-national activities in outer space. []