Artemis Accords: A Step Toward International Cooperation or Further Competition?

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine gives remarks on the agency’s Artemis program (NASA HQ, https://flic.kr/p/2hXcxV6; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/). On Oct. 13, the Artemis Accords Principles for a Safe, Peaceful, and Prosperous Future , commonly referred to as the Artemis Accords, were signed by their eight founding member states: Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. More recently, on Nov. 13, Ukraine joined as the ninth signatory. The unveiling of the accords—a series of agreements that provide a framework to maintain peace in outer space and govern behavior on the moon—has caused much excitement in the international community. But while they were drafted to serve as a tool for international cooperation, in the eyes of some space law and policy experts the accords could have the opposite effect, contributing to the escalation of competition and rivalry in space between the United States and its partners and allies, on the one hand, and Russia and China, on the other. What Are the Artemis Accords? The Artemis Accords are a set of nonbinding principles that seek to guide the conduct of states involved in the exploration of outer space in the context of—and with the intention of advancing—NASA’s Artemis Program to place the first woman and next man on the moon. The Artemis Program seeks to return humankind to the moon by 2024 to explore the lunar surface to a greater extent than ever before. NASA aims to collaborate with commercial partners, as well as with the international community, to achieve a sustainable lunar exploration by the end of this decade. The knowledge obtained through the Artemis missions will be used to send humans to Mars in the future. As an increasing number of actors are conducting missions and operations in cislunar space, NASA developed the Artemis Accords to serve as international guidelines to govern the exploration and use of space. The text of the accords comprises 13 sections that highlight 10 principles to guide future space activities, particularly those relating to the exploration of the moon and other celestial bodies. These principles are outlined briefly in the sections that follow. Section 3 – Peaceful Purposes  In accordance with the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies—also known as the Outer Space Treaty—the Artemis Accords affirm that activities carried out by their signatories should be “exclusively for peaceful purposes and in accordance with relevant international law.” The term “peaceful purposes” has been generally understood to mean nonaggressive, rather than nonmilitary. This view has traditionally been held by the United States and is reflected in the accords by the lack of an explicit prohibition of military activities on celestial bodies.  Section 4 – Transparency  The Artemis Accords aim to encourage signatory states to share their space policies as well as scientific information resulting from their activities pursuant to the accords, in an effort to promote international cooperation as per Article XI of the Outer Space Treaty, which establishes that state parties to the treaty are to inform the UN secretary-general, the public, and the international scientific community about the nature, conduct, locations and results of activities conducted in outer space. Section 5 – Interoperability This aspirational principle seeks to encourage states to use certain uniform standards—which the Artemis Accords themselves do not provide—that allow the utilization of interoperable technology to ensure efficiency. This is another measure that aims to promote international cooperation. Section 6 – Emergency Assistance  The Artemis Accords echo the language of not just the Outer Space Treaty, and particularly Article V, but also the 1968 Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (known as the Rescue and Return Agreement), which in Article II stipulates that states must take all possible steps to rescue the personnel of a spacecraft and render all necessary assistance. Section 7 – Registration of Space Objects In line with Section 4, Section 7 of the Artemis Accords also encourages transparency, this time by encouraging signatory states to duly register their space objects in accordance with the process outlined in the 1976 Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space. Section 8 – Release of Scientific Data  The sharing of scientific data is not expressly stipulated in international law. The Outer Space Treaty merely establishes in Article XI that states conducting space activities shall inform the international community “to the greatest extent feasible and practicable, of the nature, conduct, locations and results of such activities.” However, NASA’s long-standing policy has been to share a broader array of information that includes scientific data, hence, the willingness to encourage other signatories to do the same. This commitment does not apply to private-sector operations unless such operations are being conducted on behalf of a signatory state. Section 9 – Preservation of Outer Space Heritage  The objective of this principle is to ensure the protection of historically significant human or robotic evidence of activity on celestial bodies, so that new missions to the surface of the moon or other celestial bodies do not adversely impact what remains of missions that took place in years past, such as the Apollo sites. Section 10 – Space Resources  This controversial principle highlights that resource extraction and utilization can be done in a manner compliant with the Outer Space Treaty. Its contentious nature stems from the fact that the legality of space resource extraction activities is an issue that has not been universally accepted, since some countries believe that the extraction of resources would constitute a violation of the prohibition of appropriation established by Article II of the Outer Space Treaty.  The Artemis Accords follow the interpretative trend established by Title IV of the 2015 U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act and the April 6 Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources. The former establishes that U.S. companies are entitled to “possess, own, transport, use, and sell” space resources without it constituting a violation of international law. This position earned particular criticism from Russia, which characterized the act as a manifestation “of total disrespect for international law order.” The executive order reaffirms the right to resource extraction in space. It also dismisses the 1979 Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, known as the Moon Agreement, as a failed treaty not constitutive of customary international law because it has been ratified by only 18 state parties, none of which is a major space-faring country, including the U.S. Therefore, the executive order expressly rejects the Moon Agreement’s categorization of the space domain as a global commons. Russia also denounced this executive order, stating that any regulation of the exploration and use of resources in outer space adopted outside of the U.N. framework “is fraught with serious risks for international cooperation and understanding, including in outer space.” Section 11 – Deconfliction of Space Activities The Artemis Accords establish that activities in space should be conducted in a manner that complies with the U.N. Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities adopted in 2019 by the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Furthermore, signatories must also act in accordance with Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty, respecting the principles of due regard to the activities of other states and avoidance of harmful interference. This section introduces the concept of “safety zones,” which seek to contribute to the avoidance of harmful interferences. However, some experts, such as Guoyu Wang, dean of the Academy of Air, Space Policy and Law at the Beijing Institute of Technology in China, fear that such areas could become “de facto spheres of influence of a state or be subject to national appropriation.” Section 12 – Orbital Debris  Under this principle, states commit to planning for the mitigation of space debris in a manner that includes the safe disposal of spacecraft at the end of missions. How Has the International Community Reacted to the Artemis Accords? The Artemis Accords, which were first announced by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on May 15, aim to be a set of “vital principles that will create a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space for all of humanity to enjoy.” Christopher Johnson—
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