government of mars

What form will government take on Mars? The answer may have massive ramifications for all mankind. That said, it’s doubtful we’ll see an independent Martian government within the next 50 years.

Mars, like all other “celestial bodies”, is legally regarded as the “province of all mankind” in the Outer Space Treaty. The Agreement prohibits national appropriation with respect to planets and other space objects, or any part of them. Accordingly, Martian bases, stations, settlements, and colonies will be regarded as operating under the jurisdiction of their originating nationality. Private corporations will likewise operate under the law of their originating jurisdiction, as will any colonies they may establish.

Colonies, though, have a history of gaining independence when they can operate independent of their motherland. It’s therefore reasonable to expect Martian colonies - be they established by nations or corporations - to likewise declare independence eventually. Colonists may do so by disregarding Earthly international law, finding it cannot be practically enforced upon them on Mars. Or they may fight for independence and succeed. Or colonists may lobby for changes to international space law to allow them to legally declare independence.

When human Martian colonists gain independence and can establish their own government on Mars, will they choose to adopt a common Earthly form of government, such as constitutional representative democratic capitalism? Or will they attempt a new and untried form of government, correcting for the mistakes of the past without being hindered by legacy systems?

Futurists and science fiction writers like to imagine the latter. Elon Musk would like to establish a direct democracy government on Mars. In Kim Stanley Robinsons’ Mars Trilogy, some characters envisioned turning Mars into an anarchist jurisdiction.

Of course, we cannot know what the government of Mars will look like. But just as American colonists seized their opportunity to establish an innovative new form of government in North America, Martian colonists may one day have the opportunity to do the same on the red planet.