Artemis Accords: A Step Toward International Cooperation or Further Competition?
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine gives remarks on the agency’s Artemis program (NASA HQ, https://flic.kr/p/2hXcxV6; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/).
On Oct. 13, the Artemis Accords Principles for a Safe, Peaceful, and Prosperous Future, commonly referred to as the Artemis Accords, were signed by their eight founding member states: Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. More recently, on Nov. 13, Ukraine joined as the ninth signatory. The unveiling of the accords a series of agreements that provide a framework to maintain peace in outer space and govern behavior on the moon has caused much excitement in the international community. But while they were drafted to serve as a tool for international cooperation, in the eyes of some space law and policy experts the accords could have the opposit