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ARTICLE · 08 JUNE 2020

One Small Step For Property Rights In Outer Space?

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Last week, NASA announced a new set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use of outer space called the "Artemis Accords", which are named after its "Artemis" programme ...

United StatesInternational Law
Paul Whitfield-Jones
Paul Whitfield-Jones
Jason Hungerford
Jason Hungerford
Tamer A. Soliman
Tamer A. Soliman
Paulette Vander Schueren
Paulette Vander Schueren
Jing Zhang
Jing Zhang
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Last week, NASA announced a new set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use of outer space called the "Artemis Accords", which are named after its "Artemis" programme to return astronauts to the moon. It is intended that space agencies that join NASA in the Artemis programme will execute bilateral agreements reflecting the principles of the Artemis Accords. The principles cover a wide range of issues relating to space exploration, such as interoperability, deconfliction and - the focus of this article - the extraction and utilisation of resources on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.

The Accords had been previewed earlier in May by unnamed US officials speaking to Reuters, who said that the US was pursuing a new international legal framework to allow companies to own resources that they extract in space1. This in turn followed the earlier issue of Executive Order 13914 on 6 April 2020, which asserts the right of Americans to "engage in commercial

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