7 votes

The legal rights of extraterrestrials

3 comments

  1. [2]
    cesarandreu
    Link
    After some recent comments from major political figures about aliens, I was wondering what legal frameworks had explored the topic and I came across this concept of Metalaw. For all the...

    After some recent comments from major political figures about aliens, I was wondering what legal frameworks had explored the topic and I came across this concept of Metalaw. For all the first-contact stories that have been written, I was a bit surprised to find that the hypothetical explorations of law seem fairly limited. I haven't developed a strong moral intuition for how to think about this topic. One of the reasons I think that it could be valuable to discuss this topic is that it can help inform how we think about existing legal structures, since it forces us to reframe how we look at them while exploring different perspectives.

    4 votes
    1. lou
      Link Parent
      I haven't read it in full but I believe Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein touches on those issues.

      I haven't read it in full but I believe Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein touches on those issues.

      3 votes
  2. vord
    Link
    Some snark before I read it: The USA has set pretty some good precedence that you don't have rights if you're not a citizen. Doesn't matter much if you're from Cuba or Neptune.

    Some snark before I read it:

    The USA has set pretty some good precedence that you don't have rights if you're not a citizen. Doesn't matter much if you're from Cuba or Neptune.