THE PLIGHT OF VALINOR: A HISTORICALLY INFORMED PERSPECTIVE ON THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF SPACE LAW AND POTENTIAL EXERCISE OF SELF-DETERMINATION BY HUMAN SETTLEMENTS ON MARS.

Employing the medium of science fiction as a tool for both entertainment and serious inquiry, this paper utilizes a high-altitude overview of 17th and 18th century English colonial history as a case study to contemplate the potential future development of space law by a small extraplanetary community faced with the possibility of extinction. The analysis will follow a three-chapter structure, aiming to explore potential futures by considering the past, in hopes that future human expansion beyond the Earth succeeds without repeating those transgressions perpetrated by European, English and--eventually--American imperialism. The first chapter will examine the legal history of self-subsistent English colonies in North America and Australia, observing how these fledgling societies created new legal regimes by incorporating both their European legal heritage and novel concepts of law influenced by a new (to them) and uniquely challenging environment. Chapter Two will then present informed observations--based on certain historical precedents set by previous colonial societies--as to how a newly created Martian settlement might adapt its 21^st-century legal heritage to accommodate the needs of a community on the edge of oblivion, anticipating that such a community will likely reshape its inherited legal framework in the interest of its long-term survival. Finally, Chapter Three will analyze how a fragile planetary settlement might defend its potentially novel (and likely controversial) actions under general international law, with special consideration for its potential exercise of self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]