Abstract
The chapter opens with an introduction to the general legal regime in outer space. We are focusing on topics that are accentuated throughout the book, to discuss under what conditions various ideas would be realizable or what unintended consequences various decisions would cause.
The intention of the chapter is not to complete a thorough international law analysis of planetary defense, or even to propose a legal regime, but rather to discuss topics found in the book using an international law perspective. We also show that making things happen is not necessarily based on engineering virtue, and that some legal obstacles remain in the way.
Adopting a nuclear explosion method and treating it as the most effective can be true from an engineering point of view, but building lasers on the far side of the Moon could be much easier to achieve if we perceive the problem from the international law perspective.