With the spread of humanity to the stars , a rush of colonization, once the technology has caught up with our ambition, will eventually lead to problems. Like the colonists who first arrived on new lands throughout human history, we too will soon send our own groups of colonists to explore their own new land, and with this optimistic view of the future comes questions, as soon the cracks of humanity’s flaws will break the veneer of the utopias that people will set out to eventually attempt to create. This leads us to the inevitable question of what is to be done when the first fist fight on Mars breaks out?
How such affairs should be adjudicated has been a topic that has been batted about occasionally, but with the need for answers impending, coming up with a solution should be a fairly high priority. Of course, the first visitors to Mars will come in fairly small groups, from a handful, to a projected few dozen in the most ambitious cases. These small expeditions will be governed by the rules and laws of the entities that sent them, as per the stipulations of the Outer Space Treaty. If China sends an expedition to space, the people and objects they send remain under the jurisdiction of the Chinese. If SpaceX sends an expedition, those on the expedition will be subject to the rules that SpaceX sets out, along with those of the government it coordinates the launch with, most likely the United States. This of course works well for these small groups, but, should nothing absolutely terrible happen that permanently prevents us from placing more people on other planets, there will come a point where there will be too many people for a colony to continue operating on that scale of justice.
Without the ability to effectively govern long-term colonies on celestial bodies (both from a practical distance perspective, as well as due to the restrictions of the current space treaty) a situation similar to that of the United State’s formation is likely to occur, since no State can claim land in space, and therefore cannot recognize any celestial colony as sovereign land. This leaves only a few legal options, though they are more of legal loopholes in the treaty. The first option is for corporations to hold jurisdiction over whatever areas they are working in, leading to corporations becoming de facto governments in space. The other option is for a colony to claim its own borders as sovereign land to itself, forming an extraterrestrial state.
The latter is the option that I am most interested in at the moment, as the creation of a state on celestial soil is quite likely, and has interesting political implications that would either create a liability for sovereign nations to send colonists, or cause a need to create a new treaty. What would happen if, say, fifty-thousand mostly self-sustaining Martian colonists were to attempt to create a Martian nation-state? What could even be done?
At the moment, nothing. As of now, no sovereign country would be able to retaliate against such a move. Weapons can’t be sent to space, troop movements on celestial bodies are prohibited. The government that sent them could hardly even object as they are not allowed to claim any area of outer space as being owned by them. Attempting to re-annex a colony that declares independence would also be a violation, giving no legal grounds to retaliate against such a measure.
It’s also likely that such an event would occur quickly as well, as the identities that any children born of colonists would identify little with the blue dot in the sky for them that we call home today. We may send Americans to Mars, but their children will be Martians, and we will be their British Empire, colonies with no legal representation, and worse yet, no legal way to obtain that representation with their home governments without violating international law.
This does pose an interesting opportunity though, as this will be a rare opportunity in history, for a wave of new ways of doing government, separate from the grounded politics of the Earth, in tradition, in culture, and the opportunity to build new, better governments from the ground up, with the chance to bring technology along for the ride.
/rant 