Who Owns the Moon? The Geopolitics of Outer Space

In 2020, NASA and seven other countries signed the Artemis Accords, a set of rules for exploring the Moon. By 2026, more than 40 nations had joined. But Russia and China refused, and instead announced their own rival plan: the International Lunar Research Station. Neither side can legally claim the Moon as territory. So why are two competing coalitions racing to build bases there? The answer is that space law leaves huge questions unanswered, and nations are filling the gaps with their own rules — sometimes rules that contradict each other.

- What the 1967 Outer Space Treaty actually bans (and what it leaves open) - Why the 1979 Moon Agreement failed to gain support from major space powers - How the Artemis Accords and the International Lunar Research Station represent competing visions for the Moon - Why the ability to mine asteroids and lunar ice has become a geopolitical flashpoint

The Outer Space Treaty, signed by the US, USSR, and UK in 1967 and now ratified by over 110 countries, is the foundation of space law. Article II states that outer space, including the Moon, is 'not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.' That means no country can plant a flag and declare the Moon theirs — which is why the Apollo 11 flag on the Moon has no legal weight. But the treaty was written before anyone seriously planned to mine asteroids or build permanent lunar bases. It bans claiming territory, but says almost nothing about extracting and owning resources found there.

In 2020, the US-led Artemis Accords tried to fill that gap. Signatory nations agree to share scientific data, register their space objects, and — most controversially — establish 'safety zones' around their lunar operations to prevent interference from other countries' missions. Critics, including Russia's space agency Roscosmos, argue safety zones function like territorial claims in disguise, violating the spirit of the 1967 treaty. Russia and China responded by announcing the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in 2021, planning a joint robotic and eventually crewed base near the Moon's south pole — the same region NASA's Artemis program is targeting, largely because it may contain water ice.

In 2015, the US passed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, a law declaring that American companies can own and sell resources they extract from asteroids or the Moon — even though they can't own the celestial body itself. Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates passed similar laws to attract space mining companies. The 1979 Moon Agreement tried to prevent this kind of unilateral action by declaring lunar resources the 'common heritage of mankind,' requiring an international regime to govern any mining. But only 18 countries ever ratified it — none of them major spacefaring nations — so it has almost no practical force today.