Space Diplomacy Toward a Legal Regime for Space Resource Activities on the Moon

Abstract: The development of national policy and legal outputs toward space resource utilization across several countries accelerated after the introduction of the Artemis Accords in 2020. The announcement also further intensified the debate about the necessity of specifying a regime for using space resources on the international level. In 2021 the Legal Subcommittee of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space finally approved the establishment of its Working Group on Legal Aspects of Space Resource Activities. Therefore, this chapter builds on diplomacy under conditions of polycentric governance and aims to map the diversity of actors' ideas and interests about governance for space resource utilization on the level of the Working Group. The research process follows qualitative analysis methodology and assigns the results into the matrix of prospective alternatives for governing space resources. The available materials of the Working Group including reports and recordings, constitute the core empirical data used in the analysis.