Space governance beyond Earth raises questions of power and consent
Published on 24 September 2026 at 02:39 GMT
By Editorial Team SDG16
Space governance already concerns who can operate beyond Earth, how activities are supervised and whose interests count. The prospect of lasting settlements adds another question: how would authority over a mission become legitimate government over a community? The Outer Space Treaty establishes obligations between states, while the Artemis Accords address practical cooperation in exploration. Neither provides a constitution for people living permanently on another world.
A civilisation travelling across the galaxy remains a hypothetical setting for these questions. It is not necessary to assume that such travel will become possible to examine them. Decisions about supervision, access and contamination already have legal frameworks. Extending those arrangements to a distant population would raise questions about consent, representation and the difference between managing equipment and governing people.
Access without territorial sovereignty
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty provides the starting point. Article I requires exploration and use to benefit and serve the interests of all countries, irrespective of their economic or scientific development, and provides for access without discrimination on a basis of equality. Article II prohibits national appropriation through sovereignty claims, use, occupation or other means. Under that rule, a state's first arrival does not create territorial sovereignty.
This does not erase ownership or jurisdiction. Article VIII preserves ownership of space objects and gives the state of registry jurisdiction and control over the object and its personnel. A habitat and the ground beneath it therefore involve different legal questions. Ownership of a constructed facility cannot simply be treated as ownership of the surrounding celestial territory.
In the historical account published by the United Nations, space-law scholar Vladimír Kopal describes the treaty as a framework that established fundamental principles rather than comprehensive regulation. That distinction helps explain its continuing relevance and its limits. A rule against territorial appropriation can constrain states without deciding how a settlement elects representatives, resolves internal disputes or changes its governing arrangements.
Companies and public responsibility
Commercial activity is not outside the treaty's structure. Article VI makes states parties internationally responsible for national space activities, including those of non-governmental entities. Activities by non-governmental entities require authorisation and continuing supervision by the appropriate state party. Private funding does not, by itself, remove the state's treaty responsibilities.
For a hypothetical settlement dependent on a company for accommodation, communications and supplies, that arrangement would leave a separate political issue. How could residents challenge decisions by the operator when their daily survival depended on its services? State supervision of a mission and residents' participation in government address different relationships. The treaty does not prescribe the electoral or constitutional arrangements through which a permanent community would exercise political authority.
The treaty does not itself establish a local procedure for residents to seek redress. Article III nevertheless requires space activities to comply with international law, so the absence of settlement-specific provisions does not create a legal vacuum. Identifying the supervising state is one part of accountability; identifying the applicable procedure, decision-maker and means of obtaining redress is another. In a future settlement, these questions could arise in ordinary disagreements about work, access to shared facilities or emergency restrictions, rather than only in disputes between governments.
Resources and the meaning of access
The Artemis Accords, adopted in 2020 and published by NASA, express political commitments for civil exploration. Their signatories affirm that extracting space resources does not inherently constitute national appropriation. This states the signatories’ interpretation of how resource use relates to the treaty; it does not grant sovereignty over a world.
The accords also envisage safety zones based on notification and coordination to avoid harmful interference. They describe these zones as temporary, ending when the relevant operation ceases, and reaffirm free access. The practical question is how access and operational protection would coexist where different activities overlap. A safety arrangement and a territorial boundary have different stated purposes, even when both concern the same location.
The distinction has consequences for countries and institutions without operations at a particular site. Participation in exploration, access to information and influence over operating arrangements are separate forms of involvement. Physical presence would not itself answer how the interests of absent parties were represented, or how competing interpretations of access were resolved.
Obligations to explorers and possible life
Mutual assistance is already more than an ethical aspiration in the treaty. Article V requires astronauts of one state party to render all possible assistance to those of other states parties during activities in space and on celestial bodies. Article IX requires due regard for other parties' interests and addresses harmful contamination, adverse environmental changes on Earth from extraterrestrial material, and consultations over potentially harmful interference.
Planetary protection gives part of that environmental concern an operational form. NASA describes its objectives as controlling contamination carried from Earth and protecting Earth from potentially harmful material returned from other worlds. Its requirements vary with the mission and destination. These precautions are intended to protect scientific investigation and environments; they are not evidence that extraterrestrial life has been found.
If life were encountered, further questions would arise about what protection it received and who could authorise activities affecting it. The distinction between preserving a scientific record and recognising an organism's interests would become consequential. The treaty's contamination provisions do not establish a political representative for extraterrestrial life or settle its moral status. Those remain questions beyond the specific duties the text defines.
Representation across generations
Future residents would also be affected by choices made before their arrival or birth. A hypothetical founding agreement could allocate authority over common facilities without explaining how later generations could revise it. Whether consent by an initial expedition could legitimately bind a permanent population is therefore a question about political succession, not merely mission planning.
The institutional issue connects with SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). Its targets include accountable institutions, representative decision-making and stronger developing-country participation in global governance. These are United Nations development commitments, not a legal mandate to govern settlements in space. Their relevance lies in the questions they raise about whose voice enters decisions made on Earth.
The existing framework assigns responsibilities to states and limits what presence beyond Earth can establish. It leaves the political organisation of permanent communities largely unspecified. Between those two facts sits the unresolved question at the centre of space governance: how would an authority capable of sustaining an expedition obtain, retain and answer for the consent of a society?
Written by a human author, edited with AI assistance.
Further information:
United Nations Treaty Series, the original Outer Space Treaty text supports the provisions on access, appropriation, state responsibility, jurisdiction, assistance and contamination.
United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law, Vladimír Kopal's historical account explains the treaty's development and framework character.
NASA, the original Artemis Accords support the account of political commitments, resource extraction and temporary safety zones.
NASA, its planetary protection overview explains contamination controls and their scientific and environmental purposes.
United Nations, the official SDG 16 targets support the connection to accountability, representation and participation in global governance.
