Celestial bodies — the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and other planetary surfaces — are not simply scientific destinations. They are sites of legal contest, economic ambition, and cultural meaning. The treaties that protect them sit at the intersection of space law, planetary governance, and the unfinished project of decolonising the cosmos. For states in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and small island nations, these instruments are not abstract texts. They are tools for resisting a future in which orbital and lunar infrastructure is built by a handful of actors while the rest of humanity watches from the margins.
This article examines how international treaties protect celestial bodies, where the gaps lie, and why the current moment demands a more inclusive reading of the law. It is written for readers who understand that treaty language is not neutral; it encodes power, and it can be renegotiated.
The Legal Architecture: What the Treaties Actually Say
The protection of celestial bodies rests on a small but consequential set of instruments. The most important is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which establishes that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, use, occupation, or any other means. This is the legal foundation for treating celestial bodies as a shared domain rather than a frontier for territorial expansion.
Two other instruments refine this principle. The Moon Agreement of 1979 declares the Moon and other celestial bodies to be the common heritage of mankind and calls for an international regime to govern resource exploitation. The Rescue Agreement and the Liability Convention address human activity and damage, but they do not create a comprehensive environmental or cultural protection regime. The result is a legal architecture that is strong on principle and weak on implementation.
The Outer Space Treaty: A Ban on Appropriation, Not a Ban on Use
Article II of the Outer Space Treaty is often quoted but rarely examined in full. It prohibits national appropriation, yet it does not explicitly prohibit private or commercial extraction. This ambiguity has become the central fault line in contemporary space governance. The United States, Luxembourg, and a few other states have enacted domestic laws that permit companies to own resources extracted from celestial bodies. They argue that extraction is not appropriation of the body itself. Many legal scholars from the Global South reject this reading, noting that it turns a treaty designed to prevent colonial patterns into a licensing scheme for the same behaviour.
For a reader in Jakarta or Accra, the question is not academic. If a company can extract water ice from the lunar south pole and sell it, who benefits? The treaty’s silence on benefit-sharing means the answer is likely to be the company and its home state. The protection of celestial bodies, in this reading, is inseparable from the protection of equitable access.
The Moon Agreement: A Stronger Standard, a Weaker Ratification Base
The Moon Agreement offers a more demanding framework. It explicitly prohibits any threat of disruption to the existing balance of a celestial body’s environment and requires that exploitation be governed by an international regime. But the Agreement has been ratified by only a small number of states, and none of the major spacefaring powers. This is not a failure of the text; it is a failure of political will. The Agreement’s common heritage language is precisely what makes it unpalatable to states that prefer bilateral or unilateral control.
Yet the Moon Agreement remains relevant. It is the clearest expression of a legal principle that many non-spacefaring states still invoke: that celestial bodies are not resources to be claimed but environments to be stewarded. The challenge is to translate that principle into binding rules that can survive contact with commercial ambition.
Implementation Gaps: Where the Treaties Fall Short
The most honest assessment of the current legal regime is that it protects celestial bodies in principle but not in practice. Three gaps are especially consequential for the blog’s audience.
No Environmental Protection Regime
There is no treaty that requires an environmental impact assessment before a mission lands on the Moon or Mars. The Outer Space Treaty requires states to avoid harmful contamination and to conduct activities with due regard to the corresponding interests of other states, but these terms are undefined. A mining operation that permanently alters a lunar crater or a rover that introduces terrestrial microbes to a Martian valley would not clearly violate any binding rule. The Committee on Space Research has issued planetary protection guidelines, but they are voluntary and focused primarily on scientific missions, not commercial ones.
This gap matters because celestial bodies are not empty. They hold scientific data, potential subsurface water, and, for many cultures, spiritual significance. The absence of a binding environmental regime means that the first actor to arrive can define the baseline. That is a recipe for irreversible damage.
No Benefit-Sharing Mechanism
The Outer Space Treaty says that exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development. But it does not say how. There is no fund, no royalty, no technology transfer obligation. The Moon Agreement’s international regime was supposed to address this, but it has never been negotiated. As a result, the benefits of lunar and asteroid resources are likely to flow to the states and corporations that can afford to extract them.
For small island states and developing nations, this is not a hypothetical concern. The same pattern has played out in deep seabed mining, where the International Seabed Authority has struggled to ensure that the common heritage of mankind translates into tangible benefits for those who cannot mine. Space is repeating the pattern, but without even the institutional scaffolding that exists for the oceans.
No Binding Dispute Resolution for Non-State Actors
The Liability Convention creates a framework for state-to-state claims, but it is slow, underused, and ill-suited to disputes involving private companies. If a commercial lander damages a historically significant site or interferes with another state’s scientific equipment, there is no clear path to accountability. The treaties were written for an era of two superpowers and a handful of government missions. They were not written for a landscape of dozens of private actors, some of whom are more powerful than the states that license them.
The Geopolitics of Orbital Infrastructure
Protecting celestial bodies is not only about the bodies themselves. It is about the infrastructure that surrounds them: lunar orbits, relay satellites, landing zones, and the radio frequencies that connect them to Earth. These are the chokepoints of the next decade. Whoever controls the orbital infrastructure around the Moon will control access to the lunar surface.
The International Telecommunication Union allocates radio frequencies and orbital slots, but its rules were designed for geostationary satellites, not for lunar relay networks. There is no equivalent body for allocating safe landing zones or protecting historically significant sites such as the Apollo landing areas. The Artemis Accords, a set of bilateral agreements led by the United States, attempt to fill this gap by creating safety zones around lunar operations. But the Accords are not a treaty. They are a political arrangement that excludes many states and does not include binding benefit-sharing or environmental standards.
For the blog’s audience, the Artemis Accords are a case study in how institutional design can either include or exclude. A state that signs the Accords gains access to a network of like-minded partners. A state that does not sign is left to negotiate bilaterally or to rely on the thin protections of the Outer Space Treaty. The result is a two-tier system: one for the signatories, another for everyone else.
What a More Protective Regime Would Look Like
A treaty regime that genuinely protects celestial bodies would need to do three things. First, it would define harmful interference and harmful contamination with enough precision to be enforceable. Second, it would create a benefit-sharing mechanism that does not depend on the goodwill of extracting states. Third, it would establish a body with the authority to review mission plans before they launch, not after damage has occurred.
None of this is impossible. The Antarctic Treaty System offers a partial model. It prohibits military activity, suspends territorial claims, and requires environmental impact assessments. It is not perfect, but it demonstrates that states can agree to protect a shared environment when the political cost of not doing so becomes clear. The Moon Agreement was an attempt to apply a similar logic to space. It failed to attract major powers, but its principles remain the most coherent starting point for a more protective regime.
The question is whether the current generation of spacefaring states and companies will accept limits before a crisis forces them to. The history of environmental law on Earth suggests that they will not. The history of treaty-making, however, also shows that coalitions of smaller states can shift the terms of debate. The Group of 77 did this in the law of the sea. A similar coalition could do it in space.
Why This Matters for Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Small Island States
The protection of celestial bodies is often framed as a scientific or environmental issue. It is also a question of planetary justice. The states that will be most affected by lunar mining, orbital congestion, and the militarisation of space are the states that have the least influence over the rules. They are not passive observers, however. They are parties to the Outer Space Treaty. They have votes in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. They can propose resolutions, form coalitions, and insist that the common heritage principle be given real content.
This is not a call for confrontation. It is a call for engagement. The treaties that protect celestial bodies are not fixed. They are living instruments that can be interpreted, supplemented, and, where necessary, replaced. The next decade will determine whether they become meaningful constraints or rhetorical ornaments. The states that have been excluded from the first wave of space activity have a particular interest in ensuring that the second wave is governed by rules that they helped to write.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Outer Space Treaty actually protect the Moon from mining?
The Outer Space Treaty prohibits national appropriation of the Moon, but it does not clearly prohibit commercial extraction of resources. Some states argue that extracting resources is a legitimate use of space, not an appropriation of the celestial body itself. This interpretation is contested, and the treaty’s silence on benefit-sharing means that the legal protection is weaker than it appears.
Why is the Moon Agreement so controversial?
The Moon Agreement declares the Moon and other celestial bodies to be the common heritage of mankind and calls for an international regime to govern resource exploitation. Major spacefaring states have refused to ratify it because they see the common heritage language as a threat to commercial and national interests. The Agreement remains in force but has limited practical effect because so few states have joined it.
What are the Artemis Accords, and do they protect celestial bodies?
The Artemis Accords are a set of bilateral agreements led by the United States that establish principles for lunar exploration, including safety zones and transparency. They are not a treaty and do not include binding environmental standards or benefit-sharing obligations. They protect celestial bodies only to the extent that signatories choose to follow the principles, and they exclude many states from the decision-making process.
Can small states influence space law?
Yes. Small states are parties to the Outer Space Treaty and participate in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. They can form coalitions, propose resolutions, and insist on interpretations that protect the common heritage principle. The history of the law of the sea shows that coalitions of smaller states can shift the terms of international negotiations.
This article is part of a continuing series on treaty implementation gaps in space governance. A follow-up piece will examine the legal status of lunar safety zones and their implications for equatorial launch states.