Artemis Agreement

If the substance is reassuring, US funding of agreements outside the “normal” channels of international space law – such as the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space – will be a cause of consternation for some states. By requiring potential collaborators to sign bilateral behavioral agreements instead, some countries will view the United States as an attempt to enforce its own quasi-legal rules. This could lead the US to use lucrative partnership agreements and financial contracts to bolster its own position as the dominant leader. Long before the creation of the Artemis Accords, countries around the world had already signed a major international agreement focused on space exploration. The agreement, known as the Outer Space Treaty, entered into force in 1967 and stipulated that space exploration should be a peaceful exercise. He also said that countries should not introduce weapons of mass destruction into outer space and that nations should not claim other worlds, among other things. Bridenstine said: “The gateway uses exactly the same international agreement, the IGA, that the International Space Station uses.” He added that NASA “shared with Roscosmos what we want to do with the gateway in terms of working with them and what interests them, and we just haven`t heard anything.” Ultimately, the Artemis Accords are revolutionary in the field of space exploration. The use of bilateral agreements imposing standards of conduct as a condition for participation in a programme is a significant change in space administration. Since Russia and China oppose them, the agreements will certainly face diplomatic resistance, and their very existence could provoke hostility in traditional UN forums. The seven partners who have accepted the agreements with the United States are natural employees of the Artemis program and will easily adhere to the principles mentioned. Japan is eager to participate in the exploration of the moon. Luxembourg has specific legislation allowing space mining and has also signed an additional cooperation agreement with the United States.

In the end, the Artemis agreements are still just a set of policies, with no defined enforcement mechanisms. There are no real consequences if a country signs the agreement and violates any of the provisions. However, Bridenstine hopes that the participation of other nations will be enough to ensure that countries behave in accordance with the agreements. “I think there`s a lot of pressure that can be put on countries that choose to be part of the Artemis program but don`t play by the rules,” he said. Other space law experts agree that the use of bilateral agreements for Artemis agreements makes sense. “What we have with the Artemis agreements, in my opinion, is a continuum of what we`ve looked at in space law,” Ken Hodgkins, a former State Department official, said during a Sept. 30 roundtable on agreements organized by the University of Nebraska`s Space Law Program. The agreements, he said, are “a practical exercise to establish the ground rules of the core values that we all want to pursue to be beyond low Earth orbit.” Although the Artemis Accords were primarily developed by the United States to advance lunar exploration, their usefulness in the broader field of global governance is also important. It would be useful for space Powers to agree on and adhere to common principles, policies and best practices, which could be very beneficial for the safe and sustainable use of outer space and the preservation of outer space as a common heritage of all mankind.

This is only a political commitment to ensure better compliance with the commitments already made by States Parties to the OST and its four ancillary agreements. On May 5, 2020, Reuters reported that the Trump administration was drafting a new international agreement that sets out the laws governing mining on the moon. [4] NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine officially announced that the May 15 Artemis agreements will be a series of bilateral agreements between nation-states under the Artemis program. [5] [1] NASA, the US civil space agency, announced the Artemis agreement in October 2020. It is an agreement for the exploration of the moon and beyond, involving both international partners and commercial actors. The program calls for the first woman to land on the moon by 2024. The Artemis agreements are guided by the basic principles of peaceful exploration, transparency, interoperability, emergency assistance, registration of objects, publication of scientific data, preservation of space heritage, prevention of harmful disturbances and safe disposal of space debris. These are also principles enshrined in existing international space law, including the basic legal instrument, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and agreements can thus strengthen the existing international space regime. Therefore, under the Artemis agreements, NASA and partner countries will commit to protecting sites and artifacts of historical value. On 13 October, the Principles of the Artemis Agreement for a Secure, Peaceful and Prosperous Future, commonly referred to as the Artemis Agreement, were signed by its eight founding members: Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

More recently, on 13 November, Ukraine joined as the ninth signatory. The unveiling of the agreements – a set of agreements that provide a framework for peacekeeping in space and governance of behavior on the Moon – has caused a lot of excitement in the international community. But while they were designed to serve as a tool for international cooperation, in the eyes of some experts in space law and policy, the agreements 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 hand. Frans von der Dunk, a professor of space law at the University of Nebraska, drew parallels with the development of international civil aviation regulations, which began with bilateral agreements between the United States and the United Kingdom, which were later copied, among others. .