The Earth system, the orbit, and international law: The cosmolegal proposal

This chapter focuses on non-human agency in the context of environmental degradation in the Earth system and the Earth’s orbit (EO). It looks at space environmentalism and the limits of international law’s capacity to address sustainability in the Earth system and outer space. The chapter provides a brief overview of the legal instruments applicable to outer space and space environmentalism. It focuses on a theoretical proposal conceptualised as the cosmo-legal. The term cosmolegal allows for a shift in the imagination and anthropocentric understanding of the cosmos, which would not see the human, and its laws, as a central actor of the Earth system and the cosmos, or as the apex predator, owner and manager, of all it can reach and appropriate. The cosmolegal proposal belongs to legal approaches, which emphasise the multidimensional and interactive nature of human reality.