Imagine two astronauts chilling together in the ISS. End of their shift, quite tired of the lab and the absence of gravity and now it’s dinner time.
So, both these fine people are chatting, one of them makes a joke about how the other’s haircut looks like spiky cabbage when it’s floating. The other one answers “at least I know how to change a hard drive in the station without triggering the fire alarm”. And here we go, that’s all they need to get triggered. It’s a show of hands.
Anyway, if that little story was to happen in any place on earth it would probably end with a call to the police and whoever started the attack first gets handled based on whatever country’s law is applicable here. But in space, well, not only is there no police, there’s not even a country with a law to follow.
So, what’s the standard? What happens if someone breaks the law in the ISS or in space in general?
Not just between people by the way but even between countries or organisations. I mean on Earth there are “rules of the game” let’s say. You can’t put your troops past that line. You can’t test your missiles in my airspace. If your company wants to mine, sell or operate in this location, you pay your taxes to that government etc…
But again, in space, there are no borders or territories. Who do you answer to, are there even any rules, and most importantly who even sets space law?
Obviously, the answer is yes there are rules, there are quite a lot. But as we’ll see today they’re not always very easy to define and even harder to enforce.
Setting the board
When the cold war started in the 50s it became clear that some big changes were happening in the world.
Nuclear missiles crossing space to reach their destinations. Soviets sending the Sputnik-I satellite in orbit including over the American territory. But, above all, people … people are going to space, staying there, reaching the Moon and planting their own flags.
And since the situation keeps getting more intense, everyone agrees we need rules for space to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.
Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT)
One of the first set of rules that impacts space activities is the Partial Test Ban Treaty in the 60s. The idea was mainly to prevent the different nations from testing their nuclear missiles in any place other than underground. So that means no testing in open air, under water but even in space. With the super fast technology progress of the time, blowing a nuclear missile in space for “testing” was definitely becoming an option. And as you can guess this basically means spreading a nice radioactive shower with half the planet
I say an option but not even. Both Americans and Soviets actually did it multiple times in the early 60s. Some tests caused electromagnetic pulses that were way bigger than planned, so large that the measuring instruments for the experiment just went off scale.
In Hawaii (1450 km away from the test’s location), the public saw hundreds of street lights going off. House alarms started beeping and even some telephone links completely died. It just gives you an idea of how bad the impact of those tests was, even far away from populations and at hundreds of kilometres altitude.
So the idea of a treaty to control and regulate this wasn’t very hard to sell. A long list of countries accepted and signed this treaty including Americans and Soviets and the stamp is put on it in 1963.
Green: Signed and Ratified, Yellow: Signed not Ratified, Red: Not Signed
Credit: By Allstar86 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
Everyone discussed it peacefully together.
Since then all countries strictly respected the Treaty and Nuclear weapons progressively started to disappear from…
Yea ok, I’m joking of course. Actually, the decade following the treaty saw an increase in nuclear tests. Some were open-air tests by countries who hadn’t signed the treaty for example France and China. Others were indeed underground tests by Soviets, Americans and others but not at all as safe as predicted.
Not a complete loss though, this regulation was later used as an important pillar for a wider, more complete set of laws to regulate space: the Outer Space Treaties.
Outer Space Treaties
First let’s introduce the main actor in all these chats: UNOOSA or the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.
This office is basically the central point for all discussions related to space law, even today. And they were the main stakeholder at the center of discussions on the Outer Space Treaties.
Those treaties are really the pillar of space law even today. They act as the core of agreements between all countries when it comes to space activities. And even later laws rely heavily on those Outer Space Treaties as a reference point.
I’ll try to quickly summarise the main content but try to keep an eye open on how realistic or precise you think those laws are.
For the benefit of all
“The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.
Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind…”
Comment: Now if you’re like me you already feel like the backbone is shaky. Defining “in the interests” of all countries sounds pretty vague and pretty difficult to enforce.
No national ownership
“Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
Comment: In other words you can’t just go to the Moon, plant your flag there and consider it your territory.
No nukes in orbit
“States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.”
Comment: This is also valid for weapons of mass destruction in general and was obviously very a really big point. In fact this ban was reasonably efficient since “officially” even today no nuclear warheads are permanently stationed in space.
Who is responsible ?
“States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities All states are liable for damage caused by their space objects”
Comment: Pretty straightforward this time. The purpose is to try and make sure no country loses track of space activity from their guys. This really motivates countries to start writing their own national space law for any of their organizations or companies wanting to play the space game.
Make peace only
“The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes.
The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.
The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited.”
Comment: This one is also quite sensitive. I mean the term “peaceful purposes” here sounds great at a first glance. Basically, don’t shoot each other or put military legions on the Moon. But if you start asking some questions you can start to see the cracks.
- So I can’t put a military base on the Moon but what if I station some scientists “supported” by a few soldiers up there for purely peaceful research.
- By the way I’m worried about my guys so they have some weapons, just a formality. That’s a peaceful purpose right? I’m just maintaining peace and protecting my people.
- Oh wait! My competitors got startled because I have soldiers and weapons up there. They just built a similar station too close to me. And they have weapons too. I think I’ll need more weapons, just for protection of course…
Anyway, you can see how this goes. And it gets even more complicated when you start thinking of Moon/Asteroid mining, or any resources extraction. Stations for research with weapons around are one thing. Stations protecting mining spots worth trillions of dollars are a completely different story.
Later space law
Now in addition to those treaties, and after the late 60s, UNOOSA wrote other pieces of space law. Mostly as a reinforcement to the Outer Space Treaties.
The Registration and the Liability conventions for example in the 70s drafted clearer laws on how nations ensure all their space objects and operations are, well, registered… They also clarify how any problem or damage caused by your space object is your responsibility as a country. Basically the message is “keep your guys in check”.
But, to answer the question on the astronauts bar fight, in 1998 the countries working on the International Space Station (so USA, Canada, Japan, Russia, and Europe) sign an “ISS agreement” . And it states that NASA serves as the lead agency when it comes to high level decisions.
There are also some criminal and intellectual property rules in the ISS. They change depending on which module of the ISS you are in. So, basically, if you punch your colleague in the Russian module, you answer to Russian law. Japanese module equals Japanese law, etc…
So, plan your punches wisely.
The real game
Now as you can see the space game is regulated with agreed international laws. And all countries or organisations working in space have to abide by these, sometimes quite vague, rules. But do they? Even better, what if you could write the rules yourself?
I’ve said previously that the central organisation making space law is the UNOOSA, so effectively the UN. But in reality those laws are the result of long complex negotiations between the major states of the space race.
And even after negotiations not everyone has to sign the paper. A good example would be the Moon Treaty in 1984. Basically, an attempt, after the Outer Space Treaties, to clarify laws on the Moon especially on topics like the mining of resources or the common ownership of the Moon by “all mankind”.
So, you’re the USA, USSR, China or any country with ambitious Moon plans, what do you do when UN proposes this new space law? You don’t want restrictions on mining the Moon. And you most certainly don’t want to share the entirety of the Moon with all mankind.
The answer is simple you just don’t sign it. Which is exactly what happened with the Moon Treaty. Apart from 18 states (not really the main space countries at the time) no one else signed the Treaty and today it is effectively useless.
Artemis accords
Now imagine you already have your plans for the Moon and you’re the biggest space runner in the world right now. You want to go back there, and not only explore but also mine. Mine a lot!
On top of that you have strong political weight and can certainly convince many other countries to not only join your Moon program but sign a number of “laws” on activities there, drafted by none other than yourself.
Well congratulations you have just invented the Artemis accords (to which I will dedicate another article later). But the main idea is, for the Artemis programme, the US didn’t just invest in a rocket, capsule and set of astronauts. They also prepared partnerships.
The accords for partners are a key part of the plan and are a quite new aspect of space law. They cover many things from the Outer Space Treaties like scientific info sharing, debris mitigation or even the creation of “safety zones” to prevent countries from interfering with each other.
But ultimately they are written by the US, which means with US interests in mind. And their influence expands with every global partner that accepts and signs them. Funny enough, the map of signing countries looks oddly similar to a map of US allies in the world.
Credit: By Kersifal – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
You can then guess how happy US rivals are with this plan. Russia and China have actually very openly expressed their dissatisfaction with these accords. And the main response is a common agreement to push for the Chinese programme called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Again I plan to dedicate a full article to this programme.
