© Elena Cirkovic 2024
As part of the More-Than-Planet program, Makery organized a conference in May 2023 on the links between the ocean and space and how artists explore these issues. On this occasion, we invited Elena Cirkovic, a Law researcher from the University of Helsinki and a Bioart Society member, to discuss ocean law and space law. This winter, Elena Cirkovic will publish “The Law of Complex Earth and Outer Space Systems, The Cosmolegal Proposal”, in which she proposes an exploration of the law-making paradigm for complex interactions between the Earth system and outer space in the Anthropocene era. Here are exclusive reading notes on the book to be published on March 4, 2025.
The rapid expansion of human activities in outer space has created novel environmental challenges that transcend existing regulatory frameworks. As satellite mega-constellations proliferate and space debris accumulates, Earth-space technologies and accelerating activities impact Earth-space complex systems. These activities generate complex feedback loops and emergent phenomena affecting both orbital and terrestrial environments.
Elena Cirkovic’s latest book, “The Law of Complex Earth and Outer Space Systems: The Cosmolegal Proposal”, introduces the concept of “Cosmolegality” as a theoretical framework for understanding the socio-political, technical, and ecological Earth-space interactions. Developed through the ANTARES project (Anthropocentrism and Sustainability of the Earth System and Outer Space, conducted and completed at the University of Helsinki and the Max Planck Institute for Procedural Law in Luxembourg), this approach argues for fundamental changes in how law, as a social system, conceptualises and addresses environmental challenges that span Earth and space environments.
Elena positions her research at the intersection of environmental law, complex systems theory, and critical legal studies, while engaging with broader discussions in environmental humanities and Bio-art. By examining specific phenomena such as Arctic methane releases and orbital debris accumulation, her extensive and transdisciplinary study demonstrates how current legal frameworks fail to capture the complexity of Earth-space interactions.
Earth-Space Complex Systems
The book examines several key phenomena that demonstrate the complex connections between Earth’s systems and space activities. Arctic methane craters serve as a starting point. Initially, these phenomena appear unrelated. Methane craters emerge from complex processes involving permafrost thaw and trapped methane release. Their formation represents a dangerous feedback loop in the climate system, as methane is even more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Space technology plays a dual role in understanding and affecting these Earth system changes. Satellite monitoring systems, such as MethaneSAT and MERLIN, provide important data for tracking methane emissions and environmental changes. However, the effectiveness of these monitoring systems faces increasing challenges from orbital congestion and debris.
The research demonstrates how space activities affect atmospheric processes through multiple pathways: direct pollution from launches and re-entries, modification of upper atmosphere chemistry, and long-term alterations to atmospheric composition.
Recent findings from the 2024 European Space Research and Technology Centre workshop reveal that, inter alia, approximately 10% of particles in the stratosphere now contain spacecraft metals, demonstrating the increasing human impact on atmospheric composition at all levels. The full lifecycle of space technology, from manufacturing through launch to eventual re-entry, creates environmental impacts that cross traditional boundaries between Earth and space environments.
These interactions challenge traditional legal frameworks in several ways. First, they demonstrate how environmental impacts transcend conventional jurisdictional boundaries. Second, they reveal the limitations of current regulatory approaches that treat Earth and space environments as separate domains. Finally, they highlight the need for legal frameworks that can address the complex, often unpredictable interactions between human activities and natural systems.
The book argues for expanding our understanding of planetary boundaries to encompass orbital space, demonstrating how space activities affect all nine existing planetary boundaries. This analysis shows how seemingly separate phenomena—from Arctic methane releases to satellite operations—are, in fact, deeply interconnected through complex feedback mechanisms that span Earth and space environments.
The Cosmolegal Proposal
The concept of Cosmolegality proposes a transformation in how law approaches Earth-space interactions.
The book develops this normative and theoretical concept through an analysis of both scientific evidence and legal theory, arguing that traditional legal frameworks are fundamentally inadequate for addressing contemporary environmental challenges. This approach extends existing arguments that law is a complex adaptive system. It draws on recent developments in complex systems science, particularly the research teams and work of 2021 Nobel Laureates Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, and Giorgio Parisi. Their research demonstrates how even seemingly simple systems can exhibit extraordinarily complex behaviour.
The framework challenges traditional legal assumptions about causation, predictability, or stability of legal systems. While conventional environmental law often seeks to establish clear cause-and-effect relationships, Cosmolegality explicitly incorporates uncertainty as a fundamental characteristic rather than treating it as a problem to be solved and argues for the “complexification” of legal procedure (not as procedure itself, but re-imagining causality and causation, stability, and predictability).
The book demonstrates this approach through several concrete examples. The May 2024 International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) Advisory Opinion on climate change provides a case study in how international law might evolve to address complex environmental challenges. The Opinion’s expansion of marine pollution definitions to include greenhouse gas emissions, regardless of source, suggests how legal frameworks can adapt to address systemic environmental challenges.
Displaced Placemaking in Earth-Space
Building on the theoretical foundations established in the book, Elena’s parallel artistic research project at the University of Lapland’s Faculty of Art and Design develops the concept of “displaced placemaking” through individual engagement with Earth-space environments. This work examines how experiences of displacement can generate unique perspectives on human-beyond planetary relationships that transcend traditional geopolitical boundaries and local identities.
At Lake Kilpisjärvi Enontekiö, Finland (Kiruna, Sweden) and the Seurasaari museum in Helsinki, this research engages with multiple narratives of place and belonging. Elena positions her work at the intersection of local cultures (Sámi, Finnish, and migrant), experiences of multiple temporal and spatial scales simultaneously, and the beyond-human. The Seurasaari Museum was founded in 1909 and consists of 87 buildings from the different provinces of Finland. Relocated to Seurasaari Island, they are meant to show life in Finnish countryside from the 18th century to the 20th.
This temporal framing of Finnish cultural heritage co-exists with deeper geological processes—the island’s emergence through post-glacial rebound continues at approximately 3 millimetres per year. This ongoing geological movement provides a metaphor for understanding place as dynamic rather than fixed, challenging traditional notions of belonging.
In this context, Elena’s work documents both observable phenomena and the more abstract concepts of displacement and belonging. Here, the concept of “displaced placemaking” elaborates on place-based art to encompass actual, grounded, and felt bodily experiences of forced displacement. “Outsiders” visiting local spaces that connect culture and nature make new observations and narratives. Elena argues that social inclusion and justice are inseparable from broader understandings of Earth-outer space systems as well as specific localities.
This contribution suggests that displacement can engender forms of environmental connection, particularly when social communication presents challenges due to persisting discrimination or exclusion. By explicitly challenging nationalist narratives of “nature” and related approaches to environmentalism, this framework opens new possibilities for understanding human-beyond-human relationships.
Elena Cirkovic, The Law of Complex Earth and Outer Space Systems, The Cosmolegal Proposal, Routledge, March 4, 2025. The book will be available for pre-order on February 11, 2025.