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In her contribution, Beate Binder outlines the concerns and research strands of (feminist) empirical legal research. The article traces how empirical legal research with a broad concept of law and a comprehensive concept of the empirical can contribute to a better understanding of the co-constitution of law and gender. In doing so, the contributions of this issue are embedded in larger research contexts: studies on courts and judgments, on legal consciousness and legal mobilization, on historical as well as current processes of legal development. The open-ended and critically ref lective view on the »paradoxes of law« (Wendy Brown) as well as on the enabling and restricting dynamics of law opens a space for ref lection beyond the description of phenomena and the statement of shortcomings, in which utopian and transgressive moments become tangible, which are inherent in law-related practices and discourses, and which refer to other ideas of law and gender as well as of justice and solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elsewhere in "Rethinking Terra Nullius and Property in Space", I have argued that due to the changing circumstances of access to space by private entities rather than governments, the current legal situation with regard to ownership in space should be reconsidered. As it stands, ownership in space is governed by international law and currently private and even national ownership of celestial bodies is prohibited. While (controversially) arguing for the recognition of private ownership in space, I constantly have to field questions surrounding the pragmatic assertion that since international law and United Nations treaties and conventions prohibit ownership in space, there can be no development that will allow for this. Hence, while not abandoning my purely property law-oriented arguments for recognising private ownership in and on celestial bodies, I will maintain my arguments for property rights in space and analyse a number of differing options available to private entities who would like to acquire property rights in space. As such, I purposefully avoid the maligned terminology of "ownership", and rather look at various other options that still give the intrepid celestial entrepreneur some sort of property right, or even a property-like protection of their interests in space. Some examples include concessions, mining licences, prospecting rights, and certain contractual rights that could benefit from property-like protection. The thesis is that even if ownership of celestial objects is not accepted due to the existence of various problematic dogmatic viewpoints, one would still be able to achieve much the same effect by using other property mechanisms.

Space law is currently undergoing a phase of considerable change. The privatization of space activities and the growing need to maintain a sustainable use of outer space are the two main characteristics of this evolution. They require new legal approaches and different forms of regulation. The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) has, for the past 60 years, been the main forum for space lawm aking and its further development. The challenges to space law are, at the same time, challenges to UNCOPUOS and its mandate. The Member States will have to make UNCOPUOS more reactive, flexible and integrative character in order to handle the future development of space law as a key basic element for a free, peaceful, and equitable order in outer space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a new era dawning with regard to access to space and an increase in the number of nations capable of reaching and exploiting space, the field of space law as a whole needs to be re-evaluated. One such area where current legal thinking needs to be examined is with regard to the property rights to objects in space. While it was sufficient in the past for governments to frown upon the institutions of ownership in outer space and leave many space-related issues unresolved, one would need to re-examine the current body of space-law and related international instruments in the light of the ability of private enterprises’ and other new players’ ability to partake in and commercially exploit space travel. This paper investigates whether property rights should be available to space-faring nations and individuals, as well as how these rights could be acquired. Also very important is how these rights could be limited or structured in such a way as not to unnecessarily interfere with the aims of current space law. Characteristics such as the impersonality, tangibility, independence, susceptibility to control, and the usefulness and value for mankind of an object in space will once again be of crucial importance when it is necessary to determine if it can be classified as an object with regard to which one can have property rights. This is discussed against the background of objects that are deemed to be res nullius (things belonging to nobody) as well as the theory of terra nullius (land belonging to nobody).

The fields of virtual property and property in space are both new areas of property law that could not have been envisaged a hundred years ago. In both of these new fields, things and other objects of property are located in places that have not previously been considered capable of harbouring property in the traditional sense. New technological and societal developments have resulted in both the creation of property (in virtual worlds) and the ability to get to property (in space), and questions have to be asked about how property law can and will function in these new areas. This article discusses some of the important property questions posed by the creation of these new fields of property law. Although there is some correlation between the unique questions posed by the environments that these new areas of law deal with, each of the fields has some idiosyncrasies that are influenced to a large degree by the location of the property objects in each area. This article highlights these similarities, while simultaneously pointing out some of the main differences between them and traditional (Earth-based) property law.