Advancing legal education: integrating space law into postgraduate curricula in international governance and commercial law

Space law, in its current form, is still largely rooted in Cold War-era assumptions, and yet the realities of space activity today could hardly be more different. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty remains the primary legal scaffold, but its focus on state actors leaves considerable ambiguity where commercial and non-state activities are concerned. That gap has become increasingly problematic as private ventures, from small satellite constellations to lunar mining initiatives, have reshaped the landscape. This paper makes the case for integrating space law as a distinct and serious component of postgraduate legal curricula, particularly in courses concerned with international governance and commercial regulation. Without this shift, it is difficult to see how future legal practitioners will be prepared to respond to the growing regulatory complexities in this field. Through examining recent developments and legal trends, this paper highlights why and how legal education should adapt, while exploring the institutional and pedagogical challenges such integration might raise.

Citation

Morgan, D. (2025) Advancing legal education: integrating space law into postgraduate curricula in international governance and commercial law. European Journal of Law and Technology, 16(3).

Type

Journal article

Language

en

Description

© 2025 The Author. Published by School of Law Queen's University of Belfast. This is an open access article which can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://ejlt.org/index.php/ejlt/article/view/1073

ISSN

2042-115X

Collections

Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences