The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean: Regulating Outer Space as ‘Environment’

Abstract

This article argues that ‘environment’ is not an auxiliary concern in the governance of outer space but its central structuring principle. Building on James Ormrod’s sociological framework, it reconstructs five regulatory ‘productions’ of outer space as environment: as a resource environment, a risk environment, a wilderness, a research environment, and a cultural environment. Each production reveals how environmental thinking shapes the legal and institutional architecture of space governance, from resource extraction and debris mitigation to planetary protection and heritage preservation. By situating environmental considerations at the core rather than the periphery of regulation, the article reframes the Outer Space Treaty’s (OST’s) principles of use, exploration, and non-appropriation as environmental norms. This unified view exposes the interdependence between commercial, scientific, and ethical dimensions of space activity and highlights the need for coherent, sustainability-oriented regulation. It concludes that recognizing outer space as environment provides a normative and interpretative framework capable of integrating fragmented legal regimes and guiding future law- and policy-making toward equitable and durable space governance.