Metalaw is “the entire sum of legal rules regulating relationships between different races in the universe.”[1] It is a concept of space law closely related to the scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
[4] Significant elaboration of Haley's ideas did not take place until the publication in 1970 of Relations with Alien Intelligences: The Scientific Basis of Metalaw,[5] written by Dr. Ernst Fasan.
Fasan asserted that these rules would govern both human conduct and that of extraterrestrial races so as to avoid mutually harmful activities.
That formula involves: Several authors have criticized the metalegal principles proposed by Haley and Fasan for their reliance on Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative and on an approach to legal science and jurisprudence known as natural law theory.
G. Harry Stine (under his pen-name Lee Correy) wrote a short novel on the topic — "A Matter of Metalaw" (DAW Books, October 1986).