UNTIL RECENTLY, SCHOLARS anticipated that private actors would have limited opportunity to intersect as part of outer space activities.1 However, the beginnings of 2021 and 2022 proved to be years where significant amounts of interactions among private individuals and entities with unique interests and rights began to raise the question raised by Mr. Lee in his article, The Future of the Law on the Moon: What will happen when disputes arise in the course of private industry in outer space? Like my esteemed colleagues, despite my enthusiasm for private activities on the Moon, I am skeptical of the likelihood of private actors intersecting on the Moon without a major national entity being involved and dictating the applicable jurisdiction (a point for enumeration below). However, in anticipation of the potential for an unexpectedly accelerating need for dispute resolution between private actors on the Moon, Mr. Lee issues a proposal for the establishment of a U.S. jurisdictional body on the Moon. As such, my initial impression is that this article is significantly ahead of its time due to the resources required to stand up extraterritorial courts to respond to space-related issues. However, in the hopes that I am proven wrong, consideration of the proposal of a court on an extraterrestrial body merits review and further elaboration with a focus on the following elements of Mr. Lee's article: (1) the application of U.S. constitutional rights to such courts; (2) applications of the Outer Space Treaty and other intergovernmental agreements; and (3) the impact of personal jurisdiction and the intersection with the commercial contracts that would drive expansion to the Moon.
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