Emerging Frontiers in International Law

Both the space and Arctic frontiers expose a common structural weakness in international law: treaties written for an earlier, more limited set of activities are now being asked to govern circumstances their drafters did not anticipate. The Outer Space Treaty's Article IV restricts "the establishment of military bases, installations, and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons, and the conduct of military maneuvers" on celestial bodies while explicitly permitting "the use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes," a distinction between prohibited militarization and permitted military presence that leaves ambiguous where routine military reconnaissance, dual-use satellite operations, and defensive counterspace measures in Earth orbit, which the treaty's celestial-body language does not directly govern, fall relative to the treaty's "peaceful purposes" standard.