February 2022
A new legal system for space
..., got me thinking about the laws that are applicable in space. Many governments signed the UN Outer Space Treaty (OST) in 1967, but the OST only governs what governments do in space, not private companies. Five decades ago, the thought of a private...
September 2020
Tackling space debris - a global priority
... Age, the spacefaring nations conducted operations according to their own rules or their interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. As a result, space and the Earth’s orbital regimes were treated as a vast and unlimited resource, and both GEO...
January 2023
Space sustainability imperative
..., it is the big spacefaring nations that are taking up all the space in space. Space cannot be locked up just by 11 launching states. The other 135 signatories to the Outer Space Treaty should also have an opportunity to benefit from that environment...
01 April 2025
Who Owns Outer Space?
... call ‘non-trivial’. For decades, the answer has been “no-one”, because the 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits national appropriation and declares space to be the “province of mankind”. But those words were written more than half a century...
May 2017
Will international space law struggle to remain relevant?
... that the prospects for the future use of outer space offer both tremendous opportunities and challenges, whilst international...many regard this as flying in the face of the Outer Space Treaty. The ‘non-military versus non-aggressive’ debate regarding...
12 October 2016
‘Asgardia’ to become the first new Space Nation
... their scientific aspirations is exciting.” Under current international space law, including the widely adopted ‘Outer Space Treaty’, states are required to authorise and supervise national space activities, including the activities of commercial and...
