The Moon Treaty Framework — Outer Space Treaty, Artemis Accords, and What Is Actually Settled

Document 2 of the Moon set. What the 1967 Outer Space Treaty actually says and does not say; why no follow-on treaty has emerged since 1975; why the 1979 Moon Agreement failed; what the Artemis Accords commit signatories to (and do not); and the three substantive disagreements that the current framework leaves unresolved: whether extraction constitutes appropriation, whether safety zones are a workaround for territorial claims, and what status heritage sites have.

The treaty framework around the Moon is, in 2026, a working compromise that everyone is unhappy with for different reasons. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST) is the foundational document and remains in force; 114 countries have ratified it including all major spacefaring states. The 1979 Moon Agreement, intended to fill the gaps in the OST specifically for the Moon, was signed by 18 countries and ratified by none of the major spacefaring states. The 2020 Artemis Accords are a set of non-binding political principles drafted by NASA and the US Department of State; 67 countries have signed as of May 2026.

This piece sets out what each document does, what it does not do, and where the substantive disagreements are. The publication does not pick between the positions on the most contested questions; it lays them out.

The Outer Space Treaty (1967): what it says, what it does not

The OST is short — fewer than 4,000 words — and was drafted at a moment when only two states were operating in space and the public imagination of what was about to happen was both expansive and disciplined by the Cold War. It says, in summary:

Article I: Outer space is the province of all mankind. Exploration and use is free to all states without discrimination. There is free access to all areas of celestial bodies.

Article II: Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

Article III: Activities in space must be carried out in accordance with international law including the UN Charter.

Article IV: Weapons of mass destruction are prohibited in orbit, on celestial bodies, or in space. The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes; no military bases, installations, fortifications, weapons testing, or military manoeuvres.

Article VI: States bear international responsibility for national activities in space, including activities by non-governmental entities. The "authorization and continuing supervision" requirement is why every commercial space launch requires a state licence.

Article VII: Launching states are liable for damage caused by their space objects.

Articles VIII-XII: Registration of space objects, free access for inspection of stations on celestial bodies, return of astronauts in distress.

The OST does not address:

• The extraction and ownership of resources taken from celestial bodies — this is the central modern dispute.
• Dual-use civil/military infrastructure (only weapons and military operations are prohibited; surveillance, communications, navigation, and scientific instrumentation that could serve military purposes are not).
• Private actors directly (the obligation is on the launching state to supervise; the OST does not directly bind companies).
• Heritage preservation (there is no provision for the Apollo sites or Luna sites as protected locations).
• Coordination of operations at the same location (no "first come" rule; no "safety zone" provision).
• Dispute resolution — there is no court, arbitration body, or compliance mechanism.

The gaps were obvious to the drafters; the assumption was that subsequent treaties would fill them as technology developed. That did not happen.

Why no follow-on treaty emerged

Between 1967 and 1975, the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) produced four substantive treaties: the OST, the Rescue Agreement (1968), the Liability Convention (1972), and the Registration Convention (1975). The pace was rapid because:

1. Technological capability was advancing fast and creating concrete questions that needed rules.
2. The political climate of détente in the early 1970s allowed compromise between the US and USSR — at that time the only space-capable states.
3. COPUOS delegates deferred to the views of the spacefaring states; smaller states accepted that the framework would be co-authored by the two who could actually operate.

None of these conditions has held since 1975. The 1979 Moon Agreement was negotiated through COPUOS but proposed treating lunar resources as the "common heritage of mankind" with shared benefits — which the major spacefaring states (US, USSR, China by then) declined to ratify. The framework that emerged was therefore: the OST stays in force; the Moon Agreement is a museum piece; the gaps remain open.

For the last forty years, COPUOS has produced principles and resolutions but no binding treaties. The reasons given in the open literature are that the propitious conditions are absent (no détente; more spacefaring states with divergent interests; faster technological change than treaty negotiation can keep up with). Whether COPUOS is structurally incapable of producing further treaties or whether the next decade will surprise everyone is an open question; the publication does not predict.

The Moon Agreement (1979): why it failed

The 1979 Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies was the most ambitious post-OST attempt to address the resource question and adjacent issues. It says, in summary:

• Article 4: Exploration and use of the Moon shall be the province of all mankind, carried out for the benefit of all countries.
• Article 7: States shall prevent disruption of the existing balance of the Moon's environment. International scientific stations may be established but must be open to all states on a non-discriminatory basis.
• Article 11: The Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind. An international regime shall be established to govern exploitation of resources. Equitable sharing of benefits.

The reasons it failed politically:

The "common heritage of mankind" formulation was understood by the US, USSR, and emerging Chinese space programme as a constraint on first-mover advantage. The provision for an international regime governing exploitation — to be established before serious exploitation began — was understood as a brake on commercial activity, on national programmes, and on the right of a successful spacefaring state to benefit from its own investment.

The US Senate did not ratify. The USSR did not ratify. China did not ratify. Of the 17 states that did ratify, none has a serious independent crewed lunar programme. The agreement remains in force as a treaty among its signatories but has no practical effect on lunar operations by the major spacefaring states.

Whether the Moon Agreement could be revived — through new ratifications, through reinterpretation, or through a successor agreement — is a contested question among space lawyers. The publication's view: it is unlikely in the medium term because the conditions that produced it (developing-world solidarity, deep-seabed parallel discussion) do not have current analogues, but the underlying tension it tried to address has not gone away.

The Artemis Accords (2020-2026): what they do, what they do not

The Artemis Accords were drafted by NASA and the US Department of State and signed initially on 13 October 2020 by eight countries: Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the UAE, the UK, and the US. The Accords are not a treaty. They are "principles for cooperation in the civil exploration and use of the Moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids for peaceful purposes" — non-binding political commitments. By May 2026, 67 countries have signed.

The substantive provisions:

Section 1 (Purpose). Operational implementation of the OST, the Registration Convention, and the Rescue Agreement.

Section 2 (Peaceful Purposes). All activities under the Accords shall be for peaceful purposes.

Section 3 (Transparency). Signatories will publicly describe their space policies and plans.

Section 5 (Interoperability). Signatories should aim for systems that use common standards.

Section 7 (Registration of Space Objects). Re-commitment to the Registration Convention.

Section 9 (Outer Space Heritage). Signatories agree to preserve historically significant human or robotic landing sites, artefacts, spacecraft, and other evidence of activity on celestial bodies "in accordance with mutually developed standards and practices."

Section 10 (Space Resources). Extraction and utilisation of space resources can and should be conducted in compliance with the OST and in support of safe and sustainable activities. Such activity does not in and of itself constitute national appropriation under Article II of the OST. Signatories intend to contribute to multilateral efforts to develop further international practices.

Section 11 (Deconfliction of Activities). Signatories commit to provide notification of activities through "safety zones" — areas in which other operations could reasonably cause harmful interference. Safety zones should be reasonable in size and scope, temporary, and respect the OST principle of free access.

Section 12 (Orbital Debris and Spacecraft Disposal). Commitment to mitigate space debris.

What the Accords do:

• Codify a US-led interpretation of OST Article II that permits resource extraction.
• Provide a non-binding norm for "safety zone" notification.
• Create a coalition of states aligned on a single operational framework.
• Operationalise heritage preservation as a principle (without enforcement).

What the Accords do not do:

• Bind non-signatories. China and Russia are not signatories; they are pursuing the International Lunar Research Station with their own coalition.
• Create enforcement mechanisms. The Accords are political commitments; no court, no arbitration, no sanctions for non-compliance.
• Resolve the underlying OST Article II question. The Accords state that resource extraction is not appropriation; they do not prove it and they do not bind those who disagree.
• Address commercial actors directly. Private companies are subject to the OST through their launching state, not directly under the Accords.
• Define safety zone size, duration, or enforcement. The "reasonable" qualifier is the only constraint.

The substantive disagreements

Three disagreements matter and are not resolved by the current framework:

Does resource extraction constitute national appropriation?

The US position (codified in the 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act and reinforced by the Accords): extraction is "use" under OST Article I, permitted; ownership of extracted resources by the extracting actor is consistent with the OST; this does not constitute "national appropriation" under Article II because the celestial body itself is not being claimed.

The Chinese and Russian position: extraction at scale, with exclusive operating zones, with infrastructure designed to maintain a presence — is, on a plain reading of OST Article II, "appropriation by means of use or occupation." The text prohibits appropriation "by any other means" — language drafted broadly precisely because the negotiators could not anticipate every form occupation might take.

The unaligned position (held by many states in the Global South and by some European space lawyers): the question is not yet resolved and the US position is one possible interpretation, not a settled one. The Accords' assertion that extraction "does not inherently constitute" appropriation is a negative claim, not a positive one — it asserts what extraction is not, not what it is. Hobe, von der Dunk, and other space lawyers have argued the Accords represent "an attempt by the Americans to walk softly to legitimise their deviation from the Outer Space Treaty."

The publication's view: the textual question is genuinely difficult. The OST drafters did not anticipate large-scale extraction; reading "by any other means" as a catch-all that covers extraction is textually defensible, and reading it as a catch-all that covers territorial claims by other means but not extraction is also textually defensible. Subsequent state practice — the position taken by the spacefaring states in their own legislation — is, in international law, a relevant aid to interpretation. The Accords are a deliberate exercise in creating that state practice. Whether it produces a new customary norm is a question for the next decade of practice and dispute.

Are "safety zones" a workaround for territorial claims?

A safety zone, under Accord Section 11, is an area in which other operations could cause harmful interference. It is notified rather than claimed. It is temporary. It respects free access. None of those qualifiers has been tested at the boundary case.

What happens when a safety zone covers the best landing approach to a permanently shadowed crater the other party wants to access? What happens when "temporary" means twenty years? What happens when "free access" is asserted but the practical effect of the safety zone is to render access impossible?

The Chinese position is that safety zones are de facto territorial claims dressed up in different language. The US position is that safety zones are a coordination mechanism that the OST framework requires. The case for the Chinese position strengthens with the size, duration, and operational implications of an actual safety zone; the case for the US position strengthens with reasonable, time-bounded, transparency-preserving practice.

This will be tested in the next five years at the lunar south pole. The publication's companion piece on the South Pole crater question treats it in detail.

What status do heritage sites have?

Accord Section 9 commits signatories to preserve outer-space heritage. The Apollo 11 site has been an obvious focus. But:

• The Accord does not bind non-signatories. Russia and China are not signatories.
• The Accord does not define what "preservation" means in practice — buffer zones, no-access rules, restoration after disturbance.
• The Accord does not address commercial actors who are not under direct state control of an Accord signatory.
• The OST itself contains no heritage provision.

A heritage incident — physical damage to an Apollo site or a Luna site by a non-signatory's mission, or by a commercial operator — would be a major diplomatic event but would not be a breach of any binding rule. The Accords would be the only document to point to and they would not, on a plain reading, prohibit the act. They commit to mutual preservation; they do not prohibit interference.

What might happen next

Three trajectories are visible from 2026:

Trajectory one — the Accords solidify into customary international law. The 67 signatories grow to a clear majority of space-capable states. Practice consistent with the Accords becomes the norm. China and Russia operate alongside the Accords coalition with practical coordination, even without formal accession. The OST's gaps are filled de facto rather than de jure. This is the optimistic scenario for the existing framework.

Trajectory two — a serious incident forces formal negotiation. A safety-zone collision at the south pole, a heritage-site disturbance, a private-actor extraction dispute, or a major liability event creates pressure for a binding successor instrument. COPUOS or a new venue produces an actual treaty — possibly a "Moon Resources Convention" that takes the practical questions seriously. This depends on a propitious political moment that does not yet exist.

Trajectory three — bifurcation. The Artemis coalition operates under one set of rules; the China-Russia-led International Lunar Research Station operates under another. The two systems do not formally clash but do not coordinate either. Operating costs rise for both; commercial actors choose their coalition; the OST remains in force but is effectively unenforced in any way that resembles a unified legal order. This is the most likely trajectory on current evidence; it is also the one that produces the worst outcomes for science, for safety, and for the long-run cooperative possibilities.

The publication does not predict which trajectory will dominate. It notes that the existing framework is fragile, that the legal questions are genuinely contested, and that decision-making by states and commercial actors is taking place in a legal environment whose rules are uncertain at the most important points.

What the publication does not conclude

It does not conclude that the US position on resource extraction is correct or incorrect. It does not conclude that the Accords are an honest extension of the OST or a deviation from it. It does not predict whether the Moon Agreement could be revived or whether a successor instrument will emerge. It does not adjudicate the Chinese and Russian critiques.

It does conclude that:

• The legal framework is contested at the points that matter for operational decisions.
• The Artemis Accords are a serious legal-political construction, not a transparent extension of existing law.
• The "safety zone" mechanism is the most likely first flashpoint and the existing framework is probably not adequate to manage it.
• Heritage preservation has no binding international rule and the Accords' commitments are weaker than they appear.
• The bifurcation trajectory is plausible and probably the worst outcome from the perspective of long-run cooperation.

For the practical question that brings the legal framework into focus, see the companion piece on the South Pole Crater Question.