Legal Duty to Mitigate" Asteroid or Comet Collisions with the Earth Involves Much More than Stargazing, Says Policy Analyst

While scientists are certain an asteroid or comet of significant mass will strike the Earth, efforts to "mitigate" the threat are limited to searching the skies with telescopes. A new study reveals that nations are violating international law if they fail to develop other preventive efforts.

Iowa City, Iowa -- April 14, 2002 -- In the 1960s, a period that many called the Golden Age of Space," the public began to doubt the writings of lawyers who addressed space-related topics. Too many had jumped on board the ship," so to speak. Today, one area where the attention of lawyers is desperately needed relates to the mitigation of threats posed by asteroid or comet collisions with the Earth.

Aside from the efforts of nations to conduct sky searches and catalogue potential threats, there exist few, if any, plans to evacuate nations, educate the public about the nature of a significant impact, or deal with the rationing of scarce resources, in the event that scientists or military personnel are unable to destroy or deflect an oncoming space body of significant mass.

In a recent study published by the Iowa Law Review, Policy Analyst Evan R. Seamone has addressed the duty to mitigate asteroid and comet impacts from the perspective of international law. The report argues that the nature of the dangers posed by asteroids and comets place the threat in the category of certain types of disasters for which the international community is unprepared. Similar threats include the mutation of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome into an airborne virus or the collapse of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands, which would devastate multiple nations simultaneously.

Seamone argues that mitigating asteroid or comet threats necessarily involves preventive measures including the commitment of resources and personnel. He first explains the three major obstacles that must be overcome before mitigation efforts will succeed. First, the public must be educated to treat the threat seriously, an objective attainable by developing international protocols, especially involving warning mechanisms and the verification of actual threats. Second, the dangers posed by these unique threats must be situated in policies that extend beyond traditional disaster response measures at the international level, which often suffer from a lack of coordination. Third, duties to commit resources preventively must rest on principles other than the allocation of blame, which characterizes much of the corpus of law dealing with international responsibilities to mitigate transboundary harm.    

Next, recognizing the danger posed to governments in the absence of serious preventive coordination, the report associates the duty to mitigate asteroid and comet impacts with General Principles of International Law, as recognized by the Statute of the International Court of Justice. The legal precedents supporting international cooperation hinge on the duty to self-preserve as articulated by philosophers such as Vattel and Hobbes and in numerous State Constitutions guaranteeing essential necessities such as air, food, and water, and the extension of that duty, which would require nations to cooperate in order to secure the survival of their own populaces, as indicated in legal opinions such as the Island of Palmas case.

After pointing out manifestations of nations adherence to the principle of cooperative preservation," through duties to warn other nations of impending danger, such as Article 28 of the International Law Commissions Draft Articles on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Water Courses, and duties to mitigate impending danger, such as Principle VII of Principles Relevant to the Use of Nuclear Power Sources in Outer Space, Seamone recommends international collaboration similar to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), which deals with issues facing the Antarctic region, endowed with certain unique powers to influence legislation and the allocation of resources.

IF INTERESTED in receiving an offprint of Evan R. Seamones When Wishing on a Star Just Wont Do: The Legal Basis for International Cooperation in the Mitigation of Asteroid Impacts and Similar Transboundary Disasters," the author has reserved 100 complementary copies for interested individuals. The Iowa Law Review can facilitate such orders. The author may be contacted directly at (319) 358-6422 or eamone@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu.