Moon Treaty

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Moon Treaty
Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies
SignedDecember 18, 1979
LocationNew York, USA
EffectiveJuly 11, 1984
Condition5 ratifications
Signatories11 [1]
Parties17 [2] [1] (as of January 2022)
Depositary Secretary-General of the United Nations
LanguagesEnglish, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese
Full text
Wikisource-logo.svg Moon Treaty at Wikisource

The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, [3] [4] better known as the Moon Treaty or Moon Agreement, is a multilateral treaty that turns jurisdiction of all celestial bodies (including the orbits around such bodies) over to the participant countries. Thus, all activities would conform to international law, including the United Nations Charter.

Contents

As of April 2024, 17 states are parties to the treaty. [1] This limits its current relevancy internationally, particularly since it has not been ratified by any state that has the capabilities to launch crewed missions (e.g. the United States, Russia (or its predecessor the Soviet Union), or the People's Republic of China) since its creation on December 18, 1979. [5]

Objective

It was noted that since the 1967 Outer Space Treaty was signed, technologies and society evolved, requiring a redefinition of the rights and responsibilities of citizens and governments alike in the use and development of outer space. [6] The primary stated objective of the 1979 Moon Treaty is "to provide the necessary legal principles for governing the behavior of states, international organizations, and individuals who explore celestial bodies other than Earth, as well as administration of the resources that exploration may yield." [6] It proposed to do so by having the state parties produce an "international regime" that would establish the appropriate procedures (Article 11.5). [6] [7]

Provisions

The Moon Treaty proposes to establish an "international regime" or "framework of laws" that apply to the Moon and to other celestial bodies within the Solar System, including orbits around or other trajectories to or around them. [3] [7]

The Moon Treaty lays several provisions outlined in 21 articles. [3] In Article 11, the treaty makes a declaration that the Moon should be used for the benefit of all states and all peoples of the international community. [8] It reiterates that lunar resources are "not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." [8] It also expresses a desire to prevent the Moon from becoming a source of international conflict, so that the resources should be used exclusively for peaceful purposes. To those ends, the treaty lays several provisions, and some of these are paraphrased below: [3]

An artificially colored mosaic constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo's imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon on 7 December 1992. The colors indicate different materials. Moon Crescent - False Color Mosaic.jpg
An artificially colored mosaic constructed from a series of 53 images taken through three spectral filters by Galileo's imaging system as the spacecraft flew over the northern regions of the Moon on 7 December 1992. The colors indicate different materials.

When compared with the Outer Space Treaty, it reiterates most provisions, and adds two new concepts in order to address the exploitation of natural resources in outer space: to apply the concept of 'common heritage of mankind' to outer space activities, and to have the participating countries produce a regime that lays the appropriate procedures for orderly mining. [6] Multiple conferences produced no consensus on these two items.

History

After the 1967 non-armament Outer Space Treaty was signed, it was followed in 1968 with the United Nations convened UNISPACE, the United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. It was the first of a series of UN-sponsored conferences intended to create an international framework of laws to guide humanity's use of outer space resources. [6]

After ten more years of negotiations, the Moon Treaty was created in 1979 as a framework of laws to develop a regime of detailed procedures, and as such, it remained imprecise: its Article 11.5 states that the exploitation of the natural shall be governed by an international regime that would establish the appropriate procedures. In order to define this regime or laws, a series of UN-sponsored conferences took place, but brought no consensus. The continuing disagreement is based mainly over the meaning of "Common Heritage of Mankind" and on the rights of each country to the natural resources of the Moon. [6]

Ratification

The treaty was finalized in 1979 and, after satisfying the condition requiring 5 ratifying states, it entered into force for the ratifying parties in 1984. As of January 2019, 18 states are parties to the treaty, [1] seven of which ratified the agreement and the rest acceded. [1] [10] Four additional states have signed but not ratified the treaty. [1] [10] The L5 Society and others successfully opposed signing of the treaty by the United States. [11] [12]

National considerations

In the United States on July 29 and 31, 1980, the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, which was a part of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held hearings on the Moon Treaty. S. Neil Hosenball was one of the supporters of the treaty, and he attempted to compare the Moon Treaty to mining rights within the United States. Hosenball was unsuccessful in his attempt to convince the committee that the United States should ratify the Moon Treaty. The opposition, led by Leigh Ratiner of the L-5 Society, stated that the Moon Treaty was opposed to free enterprise and private property rights. Ratiner provided a potential solution to the Moon Treaty, and suggested that there should be legal claims to the Moon and "there should be a system to register such claims. By the way, I'm not speaking of claims to territory...I don't think it's necessary for us to deal with the issue of whether one can make a claim to the land itself, as long as one has the exclusive right to use it." [13]

The last effort culminated in June 2018 after eight years of negotiations, [7] when the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) held a high-level meeting that tried to produce a consensus on a framework of laws for the sustainable development of outer space, but it also failed to do so [7] when S. Neil Hosenball, who is the NASA General Counsel and chief US negotiator for the Moon Treaty, decided that negotiation of the rules of the international regime should be delayed until the feasibility of exploitation of lunar resources has been established. [14]

However since rights to economic benefits are claimed to be necessary to ensure investment in private missions to the Moon, [15] private companies in the US have been seeking clearer national regulatory conditions and guidelines [16] prompting the US government to do so, which subsequently legalized space mining in 2015 by introducing the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015. [17]

Similar national legislations legalizing extraterrestrial appropriation of resources are now being replicated by other nations, including Luxembourg, Japan, China, India and Russia. [18] While the "national" treaty explicitly allows commercial mining, other experts argue that these new national laws are inconsistent with the Moon Treaty and customary international law. [18] [19] [20] [21]

Implementation agreement

The controversy on claims and on mining rights for profit have dominated the discussion around the laws governing the Moon. [21] [16] [7]

Experts though have affirmed that the Moon Treaty does allow commercial mining, since it allows extraction after the international regulatory regime, that the Moon Treaty asks for, is put into place. Therefore it is concluded, that the Moon Treaty is incomplete and lacks an "implementation agreement" answering the unresolved issues, particularly regarding resource extraction. [7]

While the treaty reiterates the prohibition of sovereignty of "any part" of space, the current imprecision of the agreement, being called unfinished, [22] generated various interpretations, [8] [23] this being cited as the main reason it was not signed by most countries. [23] [24] The treaty proposes that the exploitation of resources shall be governed by an international regime (Article 11.5), but there has been no consensus establishing these laws. [23]

The agreement has been described without fruition [6] and possibly a failure [12] if it remains ratified by few countries, particularly those active in space. Only two countries (France and India) with independent spaceflight capabilities have signed (but not ratified) the treaty.

Echoing legal experts [6] S. Neil Hosenball, who is the NASA General Counsel and chief US negotiator for the Moon Treaty, decided in 2018 that negotiation of the rules of this international regime should be delayed until the feasibility of exploitation of lunar resources has been established. [14] An expert in space law and economics summarized that the treaty would need to offer adequate provisions against any one company acquiring a monopoly position in the world minerals market, while avoiding "the socialization of the Moon." [25]

In 2020 the Artemis Accords were signed, while not mentioning the treaty, they are nevertheless challenging the treaty. At the time of the signing of the accords U.S. President Donald Trump additionally released an executive order called "Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources." The order emphasizes that "the United States does not view outer space as a 'global commons" and calls the Moon Agreement "a failed attempt at constraining free enterprise." [26] [27]

With Australia signing and ratifying both the Moon Treaty as well as the Artemis Accords, there has been a discussion if they can be harmonized. [28] In this light an Implementation Agreement for the Moon Treaty has been advocated for, as a way to compensate for the shortcomings of the Moon Treaty and to harmonize it with other laws, allowing it to be more widely accepted. [29] [30]

List of parties

Participation in the Moon Treaty .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{} Parties Former parties Signatories Non-parties Moon Treaty Participation.svg
Participation in the Moon Treaty
  Parties
  Former parties
  Signatories
  Non-parties
State [1] [2] SignedDepositedMethod
Flag of Armenia.svg  Armenia 19 Jan 2018 Accession
Flag of Australia (converted).svg  Australia 7 Jul 1986Accession
Flag of Austria.svg  Austria 21 May 198011 Jun 1984 Ratification
Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium 29 Jun 2004Accession
Flag of Chile.svg  Chile 3 Jan 198012 Nov 1981Ratification
Flag of Kazakhstan.svg  Kazakhstan 11 Jan 2001Accession
Flag of Kuwait.svg  Kuwait 28 Apr 2014Accession
Flag of Lebanon.svg  Lebanon 12 Apr 2006Accession
Flag of Mexico.svg  Mexico 11 Oct 1991Accession
Flag of Morocco.svg  Morocco 25 Jul 198021 Jan 1993Ratification
Flag of the Netherlands.svg  Netherlands 27 Jan 198117 Feb 1983Ratification
Flag of Pakistan.svg  Pakistan 27 Feb 1986Accession
Flag of Peru.svg  Peru 23 Jun 198123 Nov 2005Ratification
Flag of the Philippines.svg  Philippines 23 Apr 198026 May 1981Ratification
Flag of Turkey.svg  Turkey 29 Feb 2012 [31] Accession
Flag of Uruguay.svg  Uruguay 1 Jun 19819 Nov 1981Ratification
Flag of Venezuela.svg  Venezuela 3 Nov 2016Accession

List of signatories

State [1] [2] Signed
Flag of France.svg  France 29 Jan 1980
Flag of Guatemala.svg  Guatemala 20 Nov 1980
Flag of India.svg  India 18 Jan 1982
Flag of Romania.svg  Romania 17 Apr 1980

List of former parties

State [1] [2] SignedDepositedMethodWithdrawal notifiedWithdrawal effective
Flag of Saudi Arabia.svg  Saudi Arabia 18 Jul 2012Accession5 Jan 2023 [32] 5 Jan 2024

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Agreement governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies". United Nations . Retrieved 2014-12-05.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies". United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs . Retrieved 2013-05-16.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. - Resolution 34/68 Adopted by the General Assembly. 89th plenary meeting; 5 December 1979.
  4. ↑ Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies , Dec. 5, 1979, 1363 U.N.T.S. 3
  5. ↑ "Institutional Framework for the Province of all Mankind: Lessons from the International Seabed Authority for the Governance of Commercial Space Mining.] Jonathan Sydney Koch. "Institutional Framework for the Province of all Mankind: Lessons from the International Seabed Authority for the Governance of Commercial Space Mining." Astropolitics, 16:1, 1-27, 2008. doi : 10.1080/14777622.2017.1381824
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Regulation of the Outer Space Environment Through International Accord: The 1979 Moon Treaty. James R. Wilson. Fordham Environmental Law Review, Volume 2, Number 2, Article 1, 2011.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Beyond UNISPACE: It's time for the Moon Treaty. Dennis C. O'Brien. Pace Review. 21 January 2019. Quote 1: "The Moon Treaty acknowledges a role for private enterprise as 'non-governmental' entities. Although it requires all private activities in space to be under the 'supervision and control' of their country of origin, it does not specify any further regulations. Rather, it leaves it up to the 'Member States'—those nations who have adopted the treaty—to create a framework of laws to facilitate the 'safe and orderly' commercial use of space resources, at such time when such regulations become necessary"; "Quote 2: "It is worth repeating that the Moon Treaty does not mandate any specific regulation for space commerce, but does require countries to create such regulations as the need arises."
  8. 1 2 3 Schingler, J. K.; Kapoglou, A. (July 15–17, 2019). "Common Pool Lunar Resources" (PDF). Lunar ISRU 2019: Developing a New Space Economy Through Lunar Resources and Their Utilization. 2152. Columbia, Maryland: 5124. Bibcode:2019LPICo2152.5124S.
  9. ↑ Moon Agreement, Article 11.5 quote: "5. States Parties to this Agreement hereby undertake to establish an international regime, including appropriate procedures, to govern the exploitation of the natural resources of the moon as such exploitation is about to become feasible. This provision shall be implemented in accordance with article 18 of this Agreement."
  10. 1 2 Status of international agreements relating to activities in outer space as at 1 January 2008 United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, 2008
  11. ↑ Chapter 5: O'Neills Children Archived 2016-12-10 at the Wayback Machine , Reaching for the High Frontier, The American Pro-Space Movement 1972-84, by Michael A. G. Michaud, National Space Society.
  12. 1 2 Listner, Michael (24 October 2011). "The Moon Treaty: failed international law or waiting in the shadows?". The Space Review. 9 October 2015.
  13. ↑ U.S. Congress. Senate, Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Committee of Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Hearings before Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Committee of Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 96th Congress, 2nd sess., 1980.
  14. 1 2 Beldavs, Vidvuds (15 January 2018). "Simply fix the Moon Treaty". The Space Review.
  15. ↑ O'Brien, Dennis (5 March 2018). "Why it's a bad idea to weaken the Moon Treaty". Space Review. […] the Moon Treaty, must be revised so that investors in a future space economy can achieve a sustainable return on their investments.
  16. 1 2 Why it's a bad idea to weaken the Moon Treaty. Dennis O'Brien, The Space Review. 5 March 2018. Quote: "Its not really so much what the regulation is but that there is regulatory clarity. Right now, because there are no clear regulations on these activities, companies are afraid, […]"
  17. ↑ H.R.2262 - U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. 114th Congress (2015-2016). Sponsor: Rep. McCarthy, Kevin. 5 December 2015.
  18. 1 2 If space is 'the province of mankind', who owns its resources? Senjuti Mallick and Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan. The Observer Research Foundation. 24 January 2019.
  19. ↑ Ridderhof, R. (18 December 2015). "Space Mining and (U.S.) Space Law". Peace Palace Library. Archived from the original on 27 February 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  20. ↑ "Law Provides New Regulatory Framework for Space Commerce | RegBlog". www.regblog.org. 31 December 2015. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  21. 1 2 Davies, Rob (6 February 2016). "Asteroid mining could be space's new frontier: the problem is doing it legally". The Guardian.
  22. ↑ The 1979 Moon Agreement. Archived 2019-11-06 at the Wayback Machine Louis de Gouyon Matignon, Space Legal Issues. 17 July 2019.
  23. 1 2 3 Current International Legal Framework Applicability to Space Resource Activities. Fabio Tronchetti, IISL/ECSL Space Law Symposium 2017, Vienna 27 March 2017.
  24. ↑ Extraterrestrial Property and Space Law: Frequently Asked Questions. Moon Estates. Accessed on 6 November 2019.
  25. ↑ The Moon Agreement and Private Enterprise: Lessons from Investment Law. Timothy G. Nelson. ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law. Vol: 17, No. 2. (2010)
  26. ↑ Administration Statement on Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources
  27. ↑ Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources
  28. ↑ "Australia Between the Moon Agreement and the Artemis Accords". Australian Institute of International Affairs. Jun 2, 2021. Retrieved Feb 1, 2022.
  29. ↑ "The Space Review: The Artemis Accords: repeating the mistakes of the Age of Exploration". The Space Review. Jun 29, 2020. Retrieved Feb 1, 2022.
  30. ↑ "The Space Treaty Institute – Dedicated to Peace and Sustainability in Outer Space. Our Mission: To give people Hope and Inspiration by helping the nations of Earth to build a Common Future". The Space Treaty Institute – Dedicated to Peace and Sustainability in Outer Space. Our Mission. Retrieved Feb 1, 2022.
  31. ↑ "Reference: C.N.124.2012.TREATIES-2 (Depositary Notification)" (PDF). New York, NY: United Nations. Retrieved 2012-04-03.
  32. ↑ "C.N.4.2023.TREATIES-XXIV.2 (Depositary Notification)" (PDF). United Nations. 2023-01-05. Retrieved 2023-01-06.

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