4.3 The way forward: Ensuring responsible and sustainable space resource activities
Space technology has already contributed to innovation in many fields. Water-purifying technology, heart monitor implants, and the camera in your smartphone are just a few examples of benefits from space exploration.(1) International Space Exploration Cordination Group; “Benefits Stemming from Space Exploration”. Available online: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/benefits-stemming-from-space-exploration-2013-tagged.pdf?emrc=ca90d1. Last accessed 01.06.2024. If we wish to continue space exploration in a beneficial way, we should be proactive in our approach towards regulation. In the discussion earlier, we hinted that the exploitation of resources will happen sooner or later, and there are few boundaries in space. Yet, outer space is ultra-hazardous, and mistakes are just statistically bound to happen sometime. Space resource activities on the Moon and beyond proportionately necessitates minimizing the risks involved with such activities. There are, in fact, a number of measures we can consider.
In 2019 the COPOUS adopted Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.(2) Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (2021), ST/SPACE/79. Available online: https://www.unoosa.org/res/oosadoc/data/documents/2021/stspace/stspace79_0_html/st_space79E.pdf, last accessed May 6, 2024. The long-term sustainability of outer space is here defined as:
“[t]he ability to maintain the conduct of space activities indefinitely into the future in a manner that realizes the objectives of equitable access to the benefits of the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, in order to meet the needs of the present generations while preserving the outer space environment for future generations.” (3) Ibid. 2.
In the guidelines, the call for national regulation is notable.(4) Ibid. 9. This measure is recurringly emphasized as crucial by scholars as well.(5) Ingo Baumann and Erik Pellander, “Ensuring space sustainability through national legislation”. In Routledge Handbook of Commercial Space Law, ed. Lesley J Smith, Ingo Baumann, Susan-Gale Wintermuth (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023), 533. Through national legislation, damage caused by misconduct can be prevented through responsible State direction. Dangerous space debris in Earth or lunar orbit from mining operations may be avoided through implementing obligations and guidelines. When the Working Group on natural resources provide their recommendations and principles in 2027, this may also contribute to a more uniform expression of law in various national legislations.
Moreover, the exclusive and excessive exploitation of celestial bodies can remain a hypothetical scenario through not only implementation of the obligation to adhere to the non-appropriation principle into national legislation. Another important consideration is the need for an international governing framework pertaining to resource activities and exploitation. There are several views on how a regulatory regime to govern space mining activities can be developed. One feasible option is a protocol annexed to the OST, essentially a governing instrument based on the already successful treaty.(6) Tronchetti (2015), 812.