Abstract
In February 2021 a draft Declaration of the Rights of the Moon was posted on the website of the Australian Earth Law Alliance (AELA). The conversations that resulted in the Declaration included voices from First Nations, law, ethics, archaeology, economics and ecology. It has been a consciously inclusive, interdisciplinary conversation. The Declaration is deliberately framed as a “draft” intended to initiate a global discussion. In this paper I contribute a religious voice to the discussion, a Christian voice. In particular, I explore the way recent themes in ecological, contextual and post-colonial theology resonate with the discussion around the Declaration. I examine what it may mean, from the point of view of Christian theological ethics, to understand the Moon to be “a sovereign natural entity in its own right”, possessing “fundamental rights, which arise from its existence in the universe”.
Presenters
Andrew DutneyProfessor of Theology, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, South Australia, Australia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
The Moon, Space Ethics, Ecotheology, Christian Ethics
