To be clear, space isn’t exactly the Wild West. NS Outer Space Treaty of 1967– Magna Carta of the law of space – sets out a framework and key principles to guide responsible behavior in space. Negotiated and drafted during a Cold War era with rising political tensions, the binding pact largely addresses concerns in a time when the apocalypse is far more of an impending threat than junk. out space. First, it prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in space. Four other international treaties specific to outer space and related activities are followed. These include Liability Convention 1972, determine who is responsible for damage caused by space objects, and The 1979 Moon Agreement, which attempts to prevent the commercial exploitation of space resources, such as the extraction of resources to establish colonies on the Moon.
Today, what has now become mass space operations (think launch plan constellations from hundreds to tens of thousands of satellites or even Ambitious proposals to exploit resources from near-Earth asteroids) was subject to rules laid down at the time when such activity was in the realm of science fiction.
The regulatory documents surrounding space law are ambiguous given that multiple scenarios are being cropped up and the Moon Agreement has too few signatories to enter into force. Thus, today’s private space companies can look at the half-century-old Outer Space Treaty and its four later agreements and reinterpret them in ways that could benefit their interests. their profits, according to Jakhu. For example, efforts to mine asteroids have been motivated by the argument that, under the Outer Space Treaty, governments cannot extract natural resources from an asteroid and keep them – but private companies can. (At best, the space treaty offers no clear answer as to the legality of asteroid mining.) Since private companies prioritize making money, “the ground rules of space are not. space needs to be expanded, built, and implemented.
Effort has been made to solve this problem. Regulatory agencies such as the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and experts from governmental, non-governmental organizations and the commercial space have teamed up to hash building blocks for new governance to address the current gaps in the space law. With the explosion of space activities in recent years, UNOOSA has drawn up a number of widely accepted guidelines for reduce debris and long term sustainability. (The guidelines recommend safe debris reduction, disposal practices, and overall good behavior, such as recommending that all space objects be registered and tracked and 90% of them launched out of orbit at the end of their missions.) These — like most attempts to address policy gaps in space law — are “soft law” or an international instrument that is not binding that no one is legally obligated to comply with. However, some countries — such as the United States, China, and India — have incorporated rules from international legal principles on good behavior in space into their national legislation on licensing. motion in space.
Multinational initiatives led by individual space developers, such as recently funded by the United States Agreement of Artemis, signaling an alternative route. Named for NASA’s human spaceflight program on the Moon, they are general guidelines for nations to follow as they explore the Moon — namely, peace, working together, and not working together. Leave any junk behind. However, the Agreements have yet to be signed by key US allies and space partners, such as Germany and France. Meanwhile, a concrete path to an international agreement could soon be in the works. In the first week of November, the representative from the UK proposed that the United Nations organized a working group – the first step in treaty negotiations – to develop new international standards of behavior beyond Earth.
