Question

Passage A
The impending reality of commercial deep-space enterprise has brought into sharp focus the legal debate surrounding lunar resource extraction and asteroid mining. Central to this controversy is Article II of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which provides that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is "not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." Certain legal scholars contend that this blanket prohibition necessarily outlaws any private acquisition or commercial sale of extraterrestrial abiotic materials.

However, this restrictive view fundamentally conflates the sovereign annexation of territory with the private ownership of severed, movable resources. In international jurisprudence, the absence of sovereign national jurisdiction over a shared commons does not preclude the lawful private harvesting of resources situated within that commons. A precise analogy exists in the established law of the sea: while the high seas cannot be subjected to the territorial sovereignty of any nation, private commercial entities have undisputed rights to capture pelagic fish and harvest resources from international waters. By logical extension, private enterprises that invest substantial capital and technical expertise to extract regolith, volatile water ice, or rare-earth minerals from celestial bodies acquire lawful title to those extracted commodities, even though the underlying celestial real estate remains entirely non-appropriable. Disallowing private property rights in severed resources would chill private investment and paralyze space exploration.

Passage B
Proponents of commercial space mining routinely cite the maritime precedent of high-seas fishing to justify unilateral private property claims over celestial materials. This analogy, however, collapses under rigorous legal and physical scrutiny.

Unlike oceanic fish stocks, which are biologically replenishable, extraterrestrial resources—such as water ice in permanently shadowed lunar craters or accessible platinum-group metals on near-Earth asteroids—are strictly finite, irreplaceable, and concentrated in a handful of high-value sites. Allowing private corporations to assert unilateral ownership over these scarce deposits results in de facto spatial enclosure, as mining operations inevitably establish exclusion zones that monopolize the limited practical landing and extraction sites. This dynamic directly subverts Article I of the Outer Space Treaty, which commands that the exploration and use of outer space "shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development."

Although Article II of the Outer Space Treaty undeniably bars sovereign states from asserting territorial dominion over celestial bodies, carving out an exception for private commercial extraction hollows out the treaty's non-appropriation principle. If corporations from a few technologically privileged nations can freely extract and monetize celestial commons without an international administrative regime and benefit-sharing mechanisms, the treaty’s foundational goal of preventing exclusionary exploitation of space will be thoroughly defeated.

Which of the following statements identifies a claim that is supported by both passages?