Thirty Years of the Moon Agreement: its retrospect and prospect

The United Nations General Assembly approved the text of an international agreement to govern the activities of States on the Moon and other celestial bodies, and opened the agreement for signature and ratification on 18 December 1979. The title of that agreement is "Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (so-called Moon Agreement or Moon Treaty)". On that date, the agreement was signed by 6 nations-Chile, France, Romania, the Philippines, Austria and Morocco-at the United Nations Headquarter in New York. The year 2009 marks the 30th Anniversary of the conclusion of the 1979 Moon Agreement. Although the Moon Agreement is one of the 5 major space-related treaties, it has been accepted only by 13 states - Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Uruguay - which are non-space powers, and so could not have had much influence on the field of space law. France, Guatemala, India and Romania have signed, but have not ratified it. Neither the United States, nor Russia, nor China, nor United Kingdom signed the treaty. Indeed, international acceptance of the Moon Agreement has been so weak that in the opinion of most jurists, the norms enshrined in that treaty failed to attain the force of customary international law. This article analyses the relationship between the 1979 Moon Agreement and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and discusses the meaning of the "Common Heritage of Mankind (CHM)" stipulated in the Moon Agreement, together with the prospect and future of the Moon Agreement. Article 11(1) of the Moon Agreement stipulates that "[t]he Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind, which finds its expression in the provisions of this Agreement and in particular in paragraph 5 of this article." According to Professor Bin Cheng, the concept of CHM stipulated in the Moon Agreement created a whole new territory in international law. This concept basically conveys the idea that the management, exploitation and distribution of natural resources of the area in question are matters to be decided by the international community, not something left to an initiative and discretion of individual States and their nationals. Similar provision is found in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention for the International Sea-bed Authority created by the concept of CHM. According to the Moon Agreement, international regime will be established as the exploitation of the natural resources of the celestial bodies other than the Earth is about to become feasible. Before the establishment of an international regime, we could imagine moratorium upon the exploitation of the natural resources on the celestial bodies. But, considering the drafting history of the Moon Agreement, there would not be any moratorium on the exploitation of natural resources, prior to the setting up of the international regime. So, each State Party could exploit the natural resources with bearing in mind that those resources are CHM. Because the Moon Agreement stipulated that the efforts of those countries which have contributed either directly or indirectly the exploitation of the Moon shall be given special consideration, the possibility of acceptance of the Moon Agreement by states would be increased with the development of exploration and exploitation of the natural resources of the Moon. In this respect, it would be better for Korea, which currently is not a party to the Moon Agreement, to be a member state thereto in the near future. In 2008, I proposed Korean Government to accept the Moon Agreement in “[t]he Report concerning the Contents of the Moon Agreement and Korean Government's Ratification” which was submitted to Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. If Korea accept the Moon Agreement, it will encourage other Asian countries to accept that treaty.