MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd June, 2020) Even though the United States plans to mine the Moon and other celestial bodies for commercial purposes and now invites its allies to join the Artemis Accords, the global community may find it hard to update the Outer Space Treaty - a backbone of international space law - in order to address the growing private sector activities in space, experts told Sputnik.
In May, the US rolled out the Artemis Accords under its Artemis lunar program. NASA plans to invite ally nations to join the bilateral agreements "which will describe a shared vision for principles, grounded in the Outer Space Treaty to create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science, and commercial activities for the benefit of humanity."
Some experts have suggested that such agreements may fill the gap on commercial activities in space, overlooked in the Outer Space Treaty (OST), which was signed in 1967, long before private business was as active in space as it is nowadays. The OST bans the national appropriation of space resources but fails to mention whether a business can claim property rights.
The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) in an interview with Sputnik in May dismissed claims that OST did not reflect the current state of affairs in space activities.
Chief of Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin has said that Moscow will not let the United States privatize the Moon since this contradicts the international law.
Despite the fact that private activities in space are gaining momentum each day, amending the OST may prove to be a compelling task for the global community so the best option would be to leave the backbone of the international space law in its initial form, according to the experts.
"Updating the OST would be a very long and contentious process among the 92+ nations in the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Plans for deep space exploration including the Moon and Mars call for activities in the near future. We are far better off using the excellent principles outlined in the OST rather than trying to negotiate a new treaty," Henry R. Hertzfeld, research professor of space policy and international affairs with the George Washington University and a former NASA analyst, told Sputnik.
One of the obstacles on path to updating the OST could be the current US administration led by President Donald Trump, infamous for withdrawing the country from many international agreements and a tough approach to negotiating the accords of such kind, according to Philip J. Stooke, an associate professor at the Department of Geography and the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration of the University of Western Ontario.
"The Artemis accords are supposed to be the agreements between nations to help organize future activities in space, but they are proposed unilaterally. As such they are not adequate by themselves to address any supposed loophole (if one exists) in the Outer Space Treaty, which is a truly international agreement. An international group should develop any accords, not just one nation. Or the treaty should be updated by international agreement. I am not confident that the present leadership of the United States is willing to negotiate anything, so such agreements may have to wait," Stooke told Sputnik.
However, at some point in time the global community should finally address the issue of the exploitation of space resources, according to Martin Barstow, professor of astrophysics and space science with the school of Physics & Astronomy, the University of Leicester.
"The Artemis accords make welcome reading as they seem to follow the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty and avoid the more unwelcome and extreme stance that we had heard recently from the White House ... However, I think it is important to explicitly address at some point a whole world approach to exploitation of resources," Barstow told Sputnik.
Hertzfeld is in agreement with Barstow that the international community may need to come up with "some new international understandings about the meaning of some of the clauses in the OST to make clear some of the ambiguities."
BUT HOW TO ENSURE THAT COMMERCIAN ACTIVITIES IN SPACE ARE SAFE?
The safety of all private companies' activities in space is governed by the OST, under which the states bear international responsibility for commercial space actions as well, according to UNOOSA. Thus, there is no international body or mechanism which would monitor on-site the safety of space activities as well as the compliance with the international law.
"Regulation is only as good as the quality of the oversight. Therefore, we really do need some kind of agreed international body to ensure basic things such as safety but also whether the activity undertaken is appropriate," Barstow said.
Stooke agrees with Barstow and calls on the international community to perhaps consider photographic surveillance from orbit as a measure of monitoring private activities.
"Transparency, or complete openness about what is being done by any nation or commercial endeavour, will be necessary. To achieve that, we might imagine inspectors on site, but at least in the beginning diplomatic efforts to secure transparency may suffice. It is not easy to imagine that a fully international body could control all such activities, as it would require the major parties to give up control over their activities and that is not the fashion at the moment. Photographic surveillance from orbit will help nations know what others are doing, and surface cameras might be installed in places to help with this (monitoring mining activity etc.) So an agreement to permit installation of cameras or other monitoring systems may be a useful step," Stooke underlined.
Hertzfeld, however, warns that establishing an international body or mechanism for monitoring compliance with the international law in space might prove to be as challenging as amending the Outer Space Treaty.
"Just as trying to renegotiate or amend the OST is a long-term and very difficult process, setting up some sort of international regulatory or governing body for space resources would be far more difficult than developing new bi- and multi-lateral agreements among the nations that have the technical capability to explore space or be partners and supporters in such exploration. This will begin the process of finding internationally acceptable mechanisms and best practices that someday could be the basis for a more comprehensive space management consortium," the former NASA official said.
