Don’t Look Up to Interstellar: EU Space Law, Human Rights, and Survival Narratives

Introduction: Survival Narratives and Authorized Duty

I just lately rewatched Interstellar (2014) and Don’t Look Up (2021), and realised that the concept of humanity’s survival on one other planet evokes not narratives of migration or asylum (as partially portrayed within the film Avatar (2009)), however fairly acquainted colonisation logics. Or is that this comparability deceptive? Are these tales about benevolent rescue on an uninhabited planet, or do they merely repackage older assumptions of anthropocentric entitlement and necessity?

This publish doesn’t method these movies as cultural commentary. As an alternative, it makes use of them as analytical lenses by which to look at a growing authorized query in EU legislation. Because the European Union expands its regulatory engagement with outer house, most notably by the proposed EU House Act, it does so alongside deepening commitments to environmental safety, human rights, and sustainability.

This convergence offers rise to the central analysis query of this contribution: can EU house legislation accommodate narratives of human survival past Earth with out reproducing colonial logics or undermining the Union’s constitutional commitments to human rights and environmental sustainability?

The argument superior right here is that anthropocentric EU house governance can’t be normatively indifferent from the Union’s constitutional framework. Even in existential eventualities, survival doesn’t function as a authorized exception inside EU legislation.

EU House Legislation and the Regulatory Attain Past Earth

Whereas house legislation has historically been dominated by worldwide treaties and nationwide laws, the EU has begun asserting a extra coordinated and strategic position in regulating house actions. Recognising the rising relevance of business house ventures, together with the extraction and use of house assets, the EU is taking steps in the direction of the harmonisation of regulatory requirements throughout Member States.

A central improvement is the EU’s Proposal for a House Act, geared toward consolidating and unifying authorized guidelines relevant to house actions inside the Union. The principal priorities are articulated within the title itself: enhancing the protection, resilience, and sustainability of house actions inside the Union by establishing standardised procedures. The proposal seeks to create a complete framework to handle the at present fragmented nationwide laws. Though nonetheless within the early phases of the legislative process, the proposed House Act is anticipated to handle authorisation, supervision, legal responsibility, and registration of house operations, in addition to security, sustainability, and strategic autonomy, together with safety and defence wants.

Moreover, the House Act is anticipated to include rules of environmental safety, danger mitigation, and adherence to worldwide obligations. This consists of stopping the creation of house particles, guaranteeing the peaceable use of outer house, and aligning house actions with broader EU aims. It goals for uniform regulation throughout all EU Member States, comparable in ambition to the attain of the Normal Information Safety Regulation. It’s supposed to use not solely to European corporations but in addition, by extraterritorial regulatory results, to international satellite tv for pc operators. The Act additionally promotes mutual recognition agreements with third nations and designates authorities to supervise each EU and non-EU operators, albeit underneath differentiated approaches. In different phrases, though formally framed as internal-market harmonisation, the cumulative impact of authorisation, supervision, and compliance mechanisms quantities to useful management over entry and conduct, which is ample to set off accountability in EU legislation.

The proposed EU House Act raises ongoing questions in regards to the division of competence between the Union and its Member States within the area of house legislation. Below Articles 4(3) and 189 TFEU, house actions fall underneath shared competence, permitting Member States to take care of their very own regulatory frameworks alongside EU motion. Nevertheless, the Union has relied totally on Article 114 TFEU to justify the House Act, as Article 189 expressly excludes the harmonisation of Member States’ legal guidelines and laws on this area, and different legislative devices have additional expanded the EU’s regulatory attain.

This issues constitutionally. EU legislation has lengthy recognised that efficient management, fairly than formal sovereignty, triggers accountability. In different contexts, equivalent to environmental regulation, knowledge safety, or exterior commerce, the Union workouts regulatory authority far past its territory. The landmark case Slovakia v Achmea (C‑284/16) highlighted the Courtroom of Justice of the EU’s (CJEU) affirmation of the supremacy and autonomy of EU legislation. This method was additional prolonged in Moldova v Komstroy (C-741/19), the place each of the events to the dispute have been non-EU states, but the CJEU emphasised the autonomy and interpretative authority of EU legislation. House governance seems to observe an analogous trajectory: though the Treaties restrict the Union’s direct harmonisation competence within the area of house, the EU constructions participation in house actions by inner market laws establishing authorisation, supervision, and compliance mechanisms that situation market entry, together with for third-country operators, thereby projecting EU regulatory requirements past its borders and interesting the CJEU’s established logic of autonomy and accountability.

Though the EU’s regulatory energy, the supremacy of its legislation, and its extraterritorial results, notably in environmental measures, have been confirmed by long-standing apply and CJEU case legislation, dissenting voices amongst Member States shouldn’t be ignored. That is particularly evident the place EU regulation touches upon delicate areas of strategic improvement, such because the intersection of environmental and power coverage. For instance, in mid-2025 the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland dominated in Group of Members of the Sejm v. European Union environmental and power competences (Okay 10/24) that Article 192(1), along with Article 192(2)(c) TFEU was inconsistent with a number of provisions of the Polish Structure, insofar because it considerably influenced Poland’s alternative of power sources and energy-supply construction. Given the range of views even on Earth, these tensions, which can result in the chance of fragmentation and resistance in EU governance, needs to be borne in thoughts when contemplating the governance of outer house actions.   

By means of licensing regimes, technical requirements, and the supervision of personal actors, the EU will not be merely collaborating in house actions; it’s shaping and controlling entry to house as a regulated atmosphere. This rising type of efficient management raises a well-known authorized query in an unfamiliar setting: the place management exists, can accountability be disclaimed?

EU house legislation subsequently, can’t be handled as impartial or purely technical. It represents an extension of regulatory energy into a brand new area, one the place the Union’s constitutional values stay legally related.

Environmental Danger, Human Rights and States’ Obligations in European Case Legislation

Though European courts hardly ever use the language of “survival”, as portrayed within the motion pictures, their jurisprudence more and more frames systemic environmental danger as a matter of obligation.

Below Article 3(5) TEU, EU exterior motion should promote human rights and sustainable improvement. House governance, subsequently, can’t be handled as a authorized frontier exempt from these commitments, as an extension of them.

Below Articles 191 and 192 TFEU, the environmental coverage pursues the preservation, safety, and enchancment of environmental high quality, the safety of human well being, the prudent and rational use of pure assets, and the promotion of measures to handle regional and world environmental issues, notably local weather change. This coverage relies on the precautionary precept, preventive motion, rectification of environmental injury at supply, and the polluter-pays precept. The CJEU has constantly held that environmental requirements designed to guard elementary rights and human well being have to be efficient and judicially enforceable.

In air-quality circumstances, equivalent to Janecek (C-237/07), ClientEarth (C-404/13), and Craeynest (C-723/17), environmental degradation is handled not as a coverage failure, however as a breach of binding authorized obligations grounded in efficient judicial safety. As acknowledged within the Advocate Normal’s Opinion in Craeynest (para 53): “The principles on ambient air high quality put in concrete phrases the Union’s obligations to supply safety following from the basic proper to life underneath Article 2(1) of the Constitution and the excessive stage of environmental safety required underneath Article 3(3) TEU, Article 37 of the Constitution and Article 191(2) TFEU.”

The European Courtroom of Human Rights (ECtHR) has developed a parallel method. In Tătar v Romania (2009) and Di Sarno and Others v Italy (2012), it referred to a “proper to stay in a protected and wholesome atmosphere,” and in Băcilă v Romania(2010) to a “proper to get pleasure from a balanced atmosphere respecting human well being.” ECtHR has progressively acknowledged that environmental dangers might set off constructive obligations, reinforcing each the precautionary precept and entry to justice inside the Conference framework. In consequence, environmental hurt has been recognised as able to participating core ensures, notably Articles 2 (the appropriate to life), 6 (the appropriate to a good trial), and eight (the appropriate to respect for personal and household life) of the European Conference on Human Rights (ECHR), as confirmed in current case legislation, equivalent to Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v Switzerland (2024).

This method is additional bolstered by the doctrine of equal safety, as developed by the ECtHR in Bosphoruscase (2005). Below the so-called Bosphorus presumption, Member States stay accountable underneath the ECHR when implementing EU legislation, until the EU authorized order offers safety of elementary rights that’s “equal” to that of the ECHR. Within the context of EU house governance, the Bosphorus rules underscore that the extension of EU regulatory authority, whether or not by authorisation, supervision, or efficient management past Earth, doesn’t droop human rights accountability. Quite the opposite, as EU legislation expands into new domains equivalent to outer house, it should proceed to supply safety equal in substance and effectiveness to Conference requirements, together with in relation to environmental dangers that threaten the circumstances of human life.

If environmental collapse on Earth engages human rights as a result of it threatens the circumstances of life, it turns into more and more tough to argue that existential danger loses its authorized relevance as soon as regulatory energy strikes past Earth.

Within the context of the colonisation of one other planet, as a tragic necessity for human survival, as portrayed in Interstellar, state motion and regulatory attain past Earth should stay suitable with the rules of proportionality and necessity. This raises tough questions: is colonisation genuinely vital, or does it function as a technologically interesting different to fulfilling current obligations of environmental safety on Earth? Might irreversible alteration of one other planetary atmosphere ever be proportionate the place much less intrusive options stay accessible? On this regard, students equivalent to Christianna Zenner, Richard A. Marcantonio, Agustín Fuentes have argued that modern anthropogenic local weather adjustments and environmental violence are themselves legacies of colonialism.

The belief that humanity might settle one other planet “for its personal survival” thus echoes colonial narratives traditionally justified by necessity and progress – narratives that trendy worldwide and European authorized orders have systematically rejected.

Colonisation, Terra Nullius, and Authorized Continuities

Worldwide jurisprudence has repeatedly rejected the doctrine of terra nullius, underneath which territory was handled as legally empty till claimed by a sovereign energy. In its Western Sahara Advisory Opinion (1975), the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice made clear that the absence of recognised statehood doesn’t render territory legally vacant (terra nullius). The Chagos Advisory Opinion (2019) additional confirmed that colonial preparations generate persevering with authorized penalties.

Though these circumstances concern terrestrial territories, their logic stays instructive. Treating celestial our bodies as “empty” till confirmed in any other case dangers reintroducing the identical assumptions that justified historic colonisation.

For EU legislation, this issues instantly. By means of authorisation and supervision regimes, the EU might come to train efficient regulatory management over environments past Earth. The place such management exists, treating these environments as legally or ethically impartial areas turns into more and more untenable – no less than for the time frame throughout which “earthlings” retain nationwide identities, earlier than any hypothetical transition to exonationalism, as mentioned by anthropologist Jack D. Eller.

The place Interstellar frames survival as a necessity for humanity requiring relocation, Don’t Look Up affords a extra revealing conclusion by exposing the potential hostility arising from such colonisation. The movie’s ultimate scene doesn’t merely present some human survivors being killed; it depicts humanity arriving on a planet which will already be inhabited, assuming entitlement, dominance, and security with out information, consent, or restraint. Learn by a authorized lens, this second will not be about an accident, however about repetition. The second try at human survival mirrors the primary: arrival framed as salvation, ignorance of current life, and speedy publicity to the implications of domination. The issue will not be that the planet seems to be hostile, however that humanity arrives as if hostility have been unimaginable.

European human rights jurisprudence has little tolerance for such a denial of foreseeable danger. In circumstances regarding disasters and systemic threats, the ECtHR has emphasised that authorities should act the place dangers are foreseeable. The lesson interprets uncomfortably effectively: survival with out governance reproduces hurt. Don’t Look Up thus exposes the hazard that humanity’s subsequent survival effort might observe the colonial previous of its predecessors on Earth, fairly than studying from it.

A sceptical reader might argue that house is completely different: there is no such thing as a sovereignty, no inhabitants, maybe no life, and subsequently no rights. But, many students warning that, with out clear authorized and moral frameworks, humanity would additionally face the problem of preserving id, tradition, and social which means past Earth. EU legislation, nonetheless, has by no means required certainty to be able to impose accountability. Environmental legislation protects ecosystems lengthy earlier than injury turns into seen, and human rights legislation more and more addresses future-oriented and systemic dangers. The precautionary precept enshrined in Article 191 TFEU operates exactly the place uncertainty prevails. To insist that the absence of recognized life implies the absence of legislation is to revive assumptions that environmental and post-colonial legislation have spent a long time dismantling. Furthermore, scholarly debates on the frequent pursuits of humanity reinforce this conclusion.  The idea of outer house because the province of mankind, as mentioned by Fabio Tronchetti within the context of the Outer House Treaty and exploitation of pure assets, aligns with broader developments in worldwide environmental legislation. Even when such developments function “in opposition to the grain of the foundational constructions of worldwide legislation”, students argue that they nonetheless maintain an optimistic declare: that distributive justice grounded in frequent values stays institutionally achievable, together with by neoinstitutionalist approaches to world governance, mentioned additionally by Frans von der Dunk.

Conclusion

This publish requested whether or not EU house legislation can accommodate narratives of human survival past Earth with out reproducing colonial logics or undermining human rights and environmental commitments.

The reply is conditional. EU legislation can achieve this provided that it acknowledges the emergence of efficient management past Earth and resists necessity-based exceptionalism. Survival doesn’t dissolve accountability; it intensifies it.

If humanity reaches past Earth, EU house legislation means that the true problem will not be technological escape, however authorized reminiscence: whether or not we repeat the patterns of domination embedded in our previous, or whether or not we feature ahead the rules of restraint, dignity, and sustainability that outline the European authorized order.

Thus, if and when humanity is confronted with the selection portrayed in Interstellar – to colonise one other planet – it mustn’t export solely organic materials and technological probes. It also needs to carry with it the mental baggage of Earth: philosophy, historical past, and, not least, the laborious legislation that embodies commitments to mutual respect, resistance to colonial logics, and the safety of human rights and environmental sustainability, along with the teachings painfully discovered on this planet. But books alone is not going to guarantee survival. As Don’t Look Up reminds us, even the richest social creativeness is futile if pure science is ignored. Survival past Earth, whether it is to imply greater than repetition, would require not a alternative between legislation and science, however their uneasy and vital coexistence.

Elmira Uysal Ljapina, PhD in Worldwide Public Legislation, is a researcher and lecturer on the College of New York in Prague.