The winner of the 2023 Donner Prize was announced on May 8, 2024, by Gregory Belton, Chair of the Donner Canadian Foundation, during a gala dinner in Toronto.

Michael Byers and Aaron Boley were awarded the Donner Prize for Who Owns Outer Space? International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space, published by Cambridge University Press.

In Who Owns Outer Space, Byers and Boley, an international lawyer and an astrophysicist, identify and explore the challenges of humanity’s rapid expansion into Space. They propose actionable solutions and explain the essential aspects of Space science, international law, and global governance in a fully transdisciplinary and highly accessible way.

The Donner Prize Jury praised the book for “providing a grounding in a field of law and policy, which is essential to the age we live in. The topic is vital, the analysis is thorough, and the finer points of law are meticulously explained. There is a clarity and “down to earth” quality to the writing, which make this a very accessible book on an “out of this world” subject.”