Metaverse: critical reflections on the regulation and development of law in virtual environments

Abstract

One of the most relevant characteristics of the human being is undoubtedly his imagination. We have been able to overcome our physical shortcomings through our prodigious mind. We are not the strongest animal, we do not have a powerful jaw, we do not have wings that allow us to fly, and we do not have gills that allow us to subsist underwater. And yet, thanks to our imagination, we cross the air, the sea and we have been able to populate the planet, even in its most inhospitable territories. We have even invented a genre, science fiction, that transports us to fantastic and suggestive worlds where human beings coexist with prodigious inventions, robots or even cyborgs. However, in the 21st century there is more and more science and less fiction. What were once the dreams of novelists and film directors are now a reality that is advancing by leaps and bounds. This paper precisely analyzes one of those dreams. In 1992 the concept of metaverse arised to support the fiction of a novelist. In 2023, the concept of the metaverse has penetrated society as a concept that is real and that, moreover, is possible. The present work tries to analyze if the metaverse can be a place with regulation or a place without regulation. The nuclear question on which this study revolves is the following: can Law exist in the metaverse? To do this, we will analyze the concept of the metaverse and distinguish it from some currently existing technologies that can be mistakenly identified with the metaverse. We will also analyze the concept of Law and we will carry out a simple cataloging of it, to understand that although Law is something unitary, that does not mean that it cannot be categorized. Finally, we will reflect on how the Law will be or could be within the metaverse.