1,720,961 research outputs found
Artemis Accords as Evolutive Law-Making: Lunar Space Mining and the Rise of Space Militarisation
No full textThe new age of technological developments continues to bring humanity much closer to Moon surface mining. Tapping the lunar economy could provide humanity with the potential to expand its presence on the Moon, as well as further into the solar system. In this context, the Artemis Accords and the geopolitics around it are shaping new complexities of lunar resource extraction. While exploiting the lunar economy is the primary objective of the Artemis Accords, the non-binding principles apply to civil activities in outer space, and all activities that may take place on the Moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids, including their surfaces and subsurfaces, as well as in orbit of the Moon or Mars, in the Lagrangian points for the Earth-Moon system, and in transit between these celestial bodies and locations. The United States drafted the Accords is building consensus, and as of January 2025, the number of signatories has grown to 53. The Artemis Accords express a soft obligation to ‘reinforce and implement the Outer Space Treaty, the Registration Convention, the Agreement on the Rescue and Return of Astronauts’ and ‘other norms of behaviour that NASA and its partners have supported’. However, some of the principles raise concerns about its consistencies with the fundamentals of space law as it introduce concepts such as safety zones, resource extraction and use and interoperability. It creates new challenges that raise questions about sovereignty, commercial rights, sustainability in space and potential military use of the lunar environment, as nations may leverage lunar activities for strategic dominance. This chapter explores the Artemis Accords as a new form of evolutive lawmaking redesigning global space governance through unipolarism masquerading as multilateralism. The chapter primarily focuses on how the Accords can foster competitive dynamics among spacefaring nations, which may accelerate the development of dual-use technologies under the facade of peaceful exploration. By placing the Accords within the broader context of astropolitical diplomacy, this chapter explores the future of lunar space mining and how the Accords will shape the future norms of militarisation and commercial exploitation of the lunar environment
Artemis Accords and Resource Mining in Outer Space
No full textThis book explores the timely intersection of international law, space exploration, and global equity, focusing on the implications of the Artemis Accords. As humanity embarks on a new era of space exploration, driven by technological advancements and geopolitical competition, the Artemis Accords represent a pivotal milestone in shaping the legal frameworks for outer space activities. These non-binding agreements, established by NASA and the U.S. Department of State, facilitate international cooperation in civil exploration and the peaceful use of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies. The Accords outline a structure for resource mining on the Moon while emphasizing peaceful exploration. However, they also raise questions about governance, ownership, and accountability, particularly regarding private enterprises and international competition.
The book critically examines the potential for space resource mining to perpetuate global inequities, drawing parallels with historical patterns of colonialism. It emphasizes the need for more equitable frameworks that allow nations, including those from the Global South, to benefit from space exploration. The contributors, experts in space law and policy, provide diverse perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of resource mining in outer space, addressing ethical and environmental considerations to promote sustainability. Through case studies and analysis, the book offers innovative solutions for ensuring a just and inclusive future for space exploration, making it an essential resource for legal scholars, policymakers, and anyone interested in space law and global equity
Evaluating Compliance with International Standards and Best Practices at the Mumbai Airport
No full textChhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA), ranked 28th in the world and 14th in Asia in the fiscal year 2022 in terms of passenger traffic is one of the busiest airports located in the financial capital of India. It is the second busiest airport in India after Delhi. With the privatisation of Mumbai’s CSMIA, the Indian airport industry saw a dramatic transformation in 2006. With the expansion of the new terminal, the economic value that the airport will hold in terms of trickling down economic benefits to the city and the financial growth opportunities will be immense. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has created a thorough set of Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) for airports in its Annex 14 to the Chicago Convention in order to guarantee the security, regularity, and effectiveness of international air navigation. The chapter attempts to provide an overview of ‘International Standards’ and ‘Best Practices’ at the CSMIA, specifically in the areas of ‘Security Regulations’, ‘Passenger Service’ and ‘Sustainability’. The chapter evaluates Mumbai Airport’s adherence to ICAO and IATA security protocols, including passenger screening, access controls, and threat detection. The second part of the chapter will focus on airport management along with global benchmarks for efficient processing, amenities, and overall traveller experience. The third part of the chapter delves into the initiatives to minimize environmental impact, optimize resource usage, and promote green operations. To achieve global net zero targets, the Mumbai airport will play a key role in accelerating renewable energy adoption, optimising resource consumption, and driving circular economy initiatives. The chapter is the outcome of an in-depth review of processes, and performance data against global benchmarks, feedback from airport management, airlines, regulatory authorities, and a first-hand assessment of operations, infrastructure, and passenger experience. The chapter also explores the issues associated with customs, human rights violations and the curious case of illegal wildlife trafficking that happens at the Mumbai Airport. The chapter provides a detailed understanding of Mumbai Airport’s performance and compliance with global best practices. The chapter will also guide the airport’s efforts to enhance security, passenger services, and sustainability and suggest mechanisms to promote coordination with regulatory authorities for the successful implementation of the improvement initiatives
AI and weaponising space | Why national space laws are now an essential
No full textThe history of warfare also shows that war has long seen heavy investments in the form of innovation, human cost, and development of weapons. Advancements in weaponry by forgers of steel, and strategy, enabled the three-dimensional orchestration of war. Since World War I, humanity has seen war fighting change from land-based battles to those fought across air and sea. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as a strategic tool represents one of the most significant challenges in space governance and modern warfare.
Outer space is increasingly recognised as vital for data, health, climate change, energy, and, most significantly, national security. In 2019, NATO adopted an Overarching Space Policy and declared space an operational domain, alongside air, land, maritime, and cyberspace. It is not just NATO; countries have also started establishing space forces in line with their army, navy, and air force. The rise of these emerging technologies is reshaping the interpretation of existing space treaties
Evolutionary Patterns of Earth System Laws and Outer Space Governance: Future of Space Law and Policy in the Third/Fourth World
Full text link265 SESA Journal 5.4: Special Issue • 2025 SESA Conference Space law is evolving in space-faring nations as the central element of science, technology and governance, as commercial actors centralise space as the next frontier for resource exploration and exploitation. The rise of military and commercial use has also introduced unprecedented risks of governance ranging from just war, liability, responsibility, property rights and more. In this complexity also lies an incertitude of who shapes the normative structure of the new space laws and policies. At the global level, international space law through treaties spanned just a decade, with the first treaty coming into force in 1967 and the fifth (and the last) drafted in 1979. The post-1980s developments have largely been through non-enforceable soft laws and national regulations. While the firstworld states have taken the forefront in developing pro-commercial space laws, often dislodging the fundamental principles of international space law, the new space nations are struggling to shape their national space laws. The smaller nations are attempting to reimagine law and legal scholarship around space governance but are forced to draft national laws that support and further hegemonic commercial interests. In this context, Earth System Law offers a normative framework to make space equitable and entrench common heritage principles. This paper argues that the current institutional structures and global space law frameworks promote an anthropogenic approach to outer space governance. There is a need for the third world and the new fourth world to orient space laws based on the Earth system’s innovative legal imaginaries of functional, spatial and temporal complexities
Developing a sustainable aviation fuel transition strategy in India
Full text linkIn 2024, the 1.5°C threshold was breached for the entire year, triggering urgent decarbonisation and energy transition debates to mitigate climate change. While much is talked about fuel transitions in various sectors, a sector less talked about is Aviation. Globally, aviation accounts for 2.5% of energy-related CO₂ emissions and is responsible for 4% of global warming to date (Ritchie, 2024). While the number seems insignificant, research indicates that its total impact on climate warming could be 2-3 times the 2.5% mark due to additional non-CO2 pollutants and the overall radiative forcing mechanism. Radiative forcing mechanisms describe how emissions and substances in the atmosphere influence the Earth’s energy balance, thereby intensifying climate change beyond the direct CO2 emissions alone
The contribution of the United Nations to the development of international space law
No full textThe international legal framework for outer space activities has largely been developed through the consensus process within the Vienna-based United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS), the primary multilateral fora dealing with the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes. The UNCOPUOS has made a remarkable contribution to the development of the international regulatory framework for space through the adoption of five binding Treaties, five sets of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Principles, as well as an array of other ‘soft law’ instruments. This chapter examines the development of this international regulatory framework within the UNCOPUOS, and the major role it continues to play in promoting international cooperation in the field of space exploration. Lastly, it discusses the evolution of this framework within the security perspective of space activities addressed by the First Committee of the UNGA and in the Conference on Disarmament (CD)
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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