The Artemis Accords and the Future of Global Space Governance

The Artemis Accords: Architecture and Ambitions

The Artemis Accords are a set of non-binding bilateral arrangements between the United States and partner nations, grounded explicitly in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST). They establish principles for the civil exploration and use of the Moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids, covering transparency, interoperability, data-sharing, and the extraction of space resources. Drafted unilaterally by the US and subsequently presented to potential signatories rather than being negotiated through an inclusive multilateral forum the Accords represent what scholars have characterised as an exercise in 'adaptive governance': establishing norms through practice, with the expectation that a large coalition of signatories will, by their collective behaviour, shape the future development of formal international space law.

While the Accords affirm compliance with existing treaties and express an intent to contribute to multilateral discussions within the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), this forward-looking posture does not obscure the fact that they depart from the anticipatory, consensus-based approach to space regulation that characterised the Cold War era treaties. The Accords are, ultimately, an instrument of space governance rather than a mere set of rules and that distinction is politically and legally significant.

A Critical Political Evaluation

Unilateralism Masquerading as Multilateralism

The most incisive scholarly critique of the Artemis Accords is that they represent 'unipolarism masquerading as multilateralism' a reformulation of global space governance that places the United States at the normative centre while maintaining the appearance of coalition-building. The Accords were drafted by NASA and the US Department of State and then presented to potential partners, bypassing the UN's consensus-based processes. This approach has prompted concerns that the US is systematically undermining the role of COPUOS, the designated multilateral forum for developing international space law, and that the resulting normative fragmentation could produce a bifurcated space order in which different blocs operate under incompatible legal regimes.

This critique gains force when one considers the deliberate non-binding character of the Accords. By avoiding the treaty process, which would require Senate ratification and expose the US to binding legal obligations the Accords afford Washington the flexibility to shape norms without incurring commensurate legal responsibility. The 'coalition of the willing' model, while expedient, is structurally antithetical to the universalist ambitions that ought to govern a domain as consequential as outer space.

The Safety Zones Problem and the Spectre of Resource Enclosure

A particularly contentious provision of the Accords concerns the concept of 'safety zones' around space operations. While explicitly framed as non-appropriation measures and therefore nominally compliant with Article II of the OST safety zones risk functioning as de facto exclusion zones, effectively fencing off resource-rich lunar terrain from other actors. The absence of a clear, multilaterally negotiated mechanism for designating such zones raises the prospect of a lunar 'land rush,' in which those with the technological capability to arrive first can claim the most strategically and economically valuable locations, such as the water ice deposits at the lunar south pole.

The US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015, which authorised American companies to own resources extracted from space, and the Executive Order of 2020 which clarified that the US does not view outer space as global commons provide the domestic legal context underpinning the Accords' approach to resource extraction. Critics argue that this constitutes a unilateral reinterpretation of the OST's non-appropriation principle that has been neither negotiated nor accepted by the international community as a whole.

The Global South and the Reproduction of Hegemonic Space Law

The Artemis Accords reproduce a historical pattern in which the technologically advanced states of the Global North define the terms of access to shared global spaces, while the majority of the world's population overwhelmingly concentrated in the Global South remains peripheral to the norm-setting process. The Common Heritage of Mankind (CHM) principle, which holds that the resources of outer space belong to all of humanity and should be administered in the interests of all states irrespective of their level of development, finds no meaningful institutional expression in the Accords.

The 1979 Moon Agreement, which operationalised the CHM principle for lunar resources, has been ratified by only 18 states and was notably absent from the Accords' normative framework. The US's deliberate marginalisation of the Moon Agreement whose provisions for equitable benefit-sharing would constrain commercial extraction signals that the Artemis framework is designed to serve the interests of technologically capable spacefaring states rather than humanity as a whole. Scholarship in this vein has argued forcefully that the Accords risk entrenching the exclusion of three-quarters of the world's population from the benefits of space exploration.

The Private Actor Gap

A further structural weakness of the Accords is their inadequate treatment of private commercial actors. The Accords impose obligations principally on signatory states, while the increasingly powerful private space industry SpaceX, Blue Origin, Astrobotic, and others remains largely beyond their reach. This creates a governance lacuna in which private entities could potentially violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Accords without facing meaningful consequences. In an era when the commercialisation of space is advancing at a pace that outstrips the development of international legal norms, this gap represents a significant systemic risk.

Bloc Formation and the Counter-Coalition

The geopolitical consequences of the Artemis Accords are already manifest in the consolidation of a rival bloc centred on the China-Russia International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) initiative. China and Russia, both of whom have rejected the Accords as a US-centric effort to bypass the United Nations, are actively recruiting partners to the ILRS, offering incentives such as technology transfer and low-interest financing for ground infrastructure. The emerging bifurcation of the space order into an Artemis coalition and an ILRS coalition represents precisely the kind of fragmentation that multilateral space governance was designed to prevent.

A slowdown in new Artemis signatories, particularly following the return of the Trump administration, has further raised questions about the long-term durability of the US-led framework. The $93 billion projected cost of the Artemis programme through 2025, combined with political uncertainty about NASA's funding trajectory, compounds the structural vulnerabilities of a framework that depends heavily on US leadership and credibility.

The Necessity of Multilateralism

Outer Space as a Global Commons

The case for multilateralism in space governance is grounded in the fundamental character of outer space as a global common a domain beyond national jurisdiction whose resources and benefits must, in principle, be shared by all of humanity. The OST's foundational principle that the exploration and use of outer space shall be 'the province of all mankind' was articulated against the backdrop of the Cold War space race, but its normative salience has, if anything, increased in an era of accelerating commercial exploitation and resource competition.

The analogy with other global commons is instructive. The Antarctic Treaty System (1959), the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1982), and the International Seabed Authority have demonstrated that multilateral frameworks, however imperfect, can successfully govern shared spaces and prevent their capture by powerful actors. The question is whether the international community possesses the political will to extend this tradition to outer space, or whether the Artemis model of governance-by-coalition will become the de facto standard.

The Stakes: Finite Resources and Long-Term Sustainability

The urgency of establishing a genuine multilateral framework is sharpened by the finite and strategically consequential character of lunar resources. The water ice deposits at the lunar south pole which could sustain human habitation and provide the propellant for deep-space missions represent a resource whose control will shape the trajectory of humanity's expansion beyond Earth for generations. Existing international space treaties, drafted in the Cold War era, were not designed to address the commercial exploitation of celestial resources at the scale now contemplated. This legal vacuum is not merely a technical deficiency; it is a geopolitical fault line.

A multilateral framework for space resource governance one that incorporates benefit-sharing mechanisms, environmental sustainability provisions, and meaningful participation by developing states is not simply a matter of equity. It is a prerequisite for the long-term stability and sustainability of the human presence in outer space. Without such a framework, the space order risks replicating the extractive dynamics that have historically characterised the exploitation of terrestrial global commons.

The Limits of Adaptive Governance

Proponents of the Artemis Accords argue that their 'adaptive governance' approach establishing norms through the practice of a growing coalition rather than through slow treaty negotiation is pragmatically superior to the UN's consensus-based model. There is a limited validity to this argument: the UN's space governance machinery has, in practice, often been paralysed by great-power disagreement, and the Accords have demonstrably catalysed discourse on space resource exploitation within COPUOS.

Yet the adaptive governance defence conflates procedural efficiency with normative legitimacy. A framework that is efficient for its architects is not necessarily equitable for those excluded from its design. The Accords' requirement that signatories contribute their experience to future multilateral negotiations is a prospective and largely aspirational commitment; it does not compensate for the structural exclusion of non-signatories from the norm-setting process. Genuine multilateralism requires not merely that the outcomes of a coalition's practice inform future negotiations, but that all affected parties participate in shaping the norms to which they will ultimately be held.

India's Strategic Interest in the Artemis Accords

The Signing and Its Immediate Significance

India's accession to the Artemis Accords on June 21, 2023, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the United States, marked a significant moment in the evolution of US-India space relations. India became the 27th signatory, and the signing was accompanied by a cluster of bilateral space cooperation announcements: NASA and ISRO agreed to develop a strategic framework for human spaceflight cooperation, NASA committed to providing advanced training to Indian astronauts at the Johnson Space Center with a view to a joint International Space Station mission, and both sides celebrated the delivery of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite to ISRO's facility in Bengaluru.

Importantly, India's accession was to the Accords alone, not to the Artemis Programme as a mission-driven initiative. The Indian government has subsequently clarified that ISRO is not yet a partner agency in any of the missions conceived under the Artemis Programme, and that India maintains its own ambitious Space Vision 2047 including the Chandrayaan series of lunar missions, the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme, and the planned Bharatiya Antariksha Station.

The Strategic Calculus: Hedging and Multi-Alignment

India's signing of the Artemis Accords is best understood not as a wholehearted embrace of the US-led space order, but as a calculated exercise in strategic hedging consistent with India's broader foreign policy tradition of multi-alignment. By acceding to the Accords, India secures access to NASA's technological expertise, advanced astronaut training, and collaborative research infrastructure assets that will materially accelerate ISRO's development without subordinating its independent space programme to the American framework.

India's space economy, estimated at approximately $7.6 billion or 2 percent of the global space economy, is considerably smaller than the ambitions of its space programme. The NISAR satellite, the Gaganyaan mission, and India's aspiration to become a major commercial launch provider all stand to benefit from deeper US-India space cooperation. Not signing the Accords would have foreclosed these opportunities and risked India's exclusion from the emerging cislunar economy a cost that New Delhi evidently judged to be prohibitive.

The Tensions: Strategic Autonomy and the Legacy of Non-Alignment

Yet India's accession to the Accords is not without its tensions. India has historically championed multilateral approaches to global governance and has been a vocal advocate for the interests of the Global South in international forums. Its signing of an instrument that critics characterise as structurally unilateral sits uncomfortably with this tradition. The fact that ISRO has not yet joined any Artemis mission and that India maintains its own lunar exploration roadmap suggests that New Delhi is at pains to preserve its strategic autonomy even as it deepens its engagement with the US-led framework.

There is also the question of India's relationship with China in the space domain. While India has aligned itself with the Artemis coalition, it has not entirely foreclosed cooperative engagement with China though the Wolf Amendment's prohibition on NASA-China cooperation, and the broader trajectory of US-China competition, increasingly constrain this space. India's position as a non-aligned space power in a bifurcating space order will become progressively more difficult to sustain, and the Artemis accession may, over time, draw New Delhi more firmly into the US-led bloc than its current posture suggests.

Conclusion

The Artemis Accords represent a pivotal but profoundly contested moment in the development of international space law and governance. This essay has argued that the Accords are, structurally and normatively, a vehicle for US hegemonic interest in outer space one that bypasses multilateral processes, creates de facto resource enclosures, and marginalises the Global South, even as it formally affirms compliance with the OST and professes a commitment to future multilateral development.

The case for genuine multilateralism grounded in the character of outer space as a global common, the finite and consequential nature of its resources, and the lessons of successful multilateral governance in other domains remains compelling and urgent. The adaptive governance model offered by the Accords is at best a partial substitute and at worst a mechanism for locking in the normative preferences of the technologically powerful before a more inclusive framework can be established.

India's engagement with the Accords exemplifies the difficult calculations facing middle powers in a bifurcating space order. Its accession reflects a pragmatic and understandable assessment of national interests, but it also implicates India in a framework whose equity and legitimacy remain in question. As the lunar south pole becomes an arena of active competition, and as the legal framework governing space resources remains unresolved, the choices made today by states like India will determine whether outer space is governed as a genuine common or as a new frontier for the projection of terrestrial power.

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Photo by NASA on Unsplash

(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of CESCUBE)