Abstract

This article explores the current state of the Czech Republic's legal and institutional framework for space resource utilisation in the context of rapidly evolving international and European norms. While the Czech Republic has made notable strides in space research and multilateral cooperation, is a sophisticated actor in satellite research and a host to the EU Space Programme Agency (EUSPA), it lacks a comprehensive national legal regime governing commercial space mining. As other states, such as the United States and Luxembourg, have advanced domestic legislation recognizing private rights over space resources, and as the European Union prepares a harmonised Space Act, the Czech Republic risks falling behind. 

This paper evaluates the country's alignment with international treaties, assesses gaps in its regulatory landscape, and proposes policy recommendations to ensure legal certainty, environmental responsibility, and strategic competitiveness. By applying a doctrinal analysis grounded in Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the paper reassess the interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty in light of contemporary commercial mining initiatives. The analysis develops a graduated scenario framework - from limited asteroid extraction to industrial-scale exploitation and settlement-based activities on celestial bodies - to evaluate when resource use remains within the Treaty's permissive core and when it risks functional territorialisation contrary to the non-appropriation principle. The article further situates space resource governance within comparative terrestrial regimes (the law of the sea, the Arctic, and Antarctica), highlighting the structural absence of allocation mechanisms in outer space and the resulting reliance on decentralised national implementation. Furthermore, the article examines the constitutional tensions inherent in the proposed EU Space Act. The article argues that the core legal challenge is not the recognition of ownership of extracted resources per se, but the design of a coherent national licensing and supervisory framework capable of ensuring treaty compliance, legal certainty, and long-term sustainability. 

This paper will be part of the OGEL Special Issue on "Space Mining: National and International Regulation for and against Commercial Mining of Outer Space Resources". More information here www.ogel.org/news.asp?key=819