Sharing the Benefits of Asteroid Mining

Abstract

Near‐Earth asteroids (NEAs) hold metal reserves that could sustain global consumption for millennia. Unresolved questions of technological and economic feasibility notwithstanding, NEA mining could ensure the accessibility and affordability of key strategic resources, contribute to sustainability transitions and displace environmentally and socially harmful terrestrial mining. Based on implicit and explicit normative commitments towards the common heritage principle in international space law, we develop the outlines of a regime for the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits resulting from NEA mining. For doing so, we analyze the linkages between institutional design and regime effectiveness for benefit‐sharing regimes in the areas of deep‐sea mining and plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Attempting to control for differences in problem structure, we transpose this analysis to the case of NEA mining, where an effective benefit‐sharing regime would revolve around the following elements: standardized exploration and exploitation contracts, back‐end benefit‐sharing as a percentage of commercial profits, research exemptions, compliance mechanisms for preventing and reducing space pollution, as well as a reserve banking system for mining claims. For the contemporary political debate on space resources, we thus aim to provide a feasible alternative to the exclusive appropriation of space resources through private property rights.

Assessing benefits and risks between the space economies and the sustainable development goals

“…The space economies also have potential in addressing global challenges such as through technological developments in space agriculture and space medicine, which could result in benefits here on Earth for agriculture and medicine for numerous diseases (Mortimer and Gilliham, 2022;Renault, 2022), including possible advances in cancer treatments (Prasanth et al, 2020;Pavez Lorie et al, 2021). Furthermore, the development of the space-for-space economy into one that identifies, processes, and utilises space resources, such as asteroids, could see currently rare and expensive commodities become common and affordable (Butkevičienė and Rabitz, 2022).…”

Governing Outer Space as a Commons is Critical for Addressing Commons on Earth

“…In recent years, spacefaring nations and private companies began exploring the possibility of extracting resources from the Moon and asteroids with the hope to transport them back to Earth (Moore et al, 2022;Yarlagadda, 2022). These developments have raised concerns in relation to benefit sharing for the global society, as there is no proper governance framework in place that mandates such practice (Jakhu et al, 2017;Butkeviciene and Rabitz, 2022). Overall, the rapid expansion of human activities in space brings about a variety of new governance issues, which warrants more research on addressing outer space as commons.…”

Space Resources and the Politics of International Regime Formation

“…While the Outer Space Treaty may not necessarily require the regulation of space resources based on (emerging or existing) legal principles such as common heritage of humanity or fair-and equitable benefit-sharing, it is compatible with regulatory approaches that use these or related principles for giving effect to collective rights of humanity or international society (Butkevičienė and Rabitz 2022). Legal scholars have shown avid interest in the modalities of a legal regime for space resources that would incorporate notions of common heritage and benefitsharing (see Bilder 2009;Pop 2009;Doshi 2016;Heise 2018).…”

“…Notwithstanding the institutional innovations and changes in the structure of global governance over the past few decades (e.g., Abbott et al 2016;Roger and Dauvergne 2016;Abbott and Faude 2021), conventional multilateralism is unique in its potential to deliver (limited) solutions for problems of international collective action where the technological-and economic capacities of states diverge and crucial norms of global justice are at stake. This conventional approach is the core of international regimes for similar cases of transnational commons in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, notably for Antarctica, the ocean floor and its subsoil in the high seas, or the global seeds commons (Butkevičienė and Rabitz 2022). Similarly, the new 2023 agreement on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, adopted under the Law of the Sea Convention, sets out to ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of high-seas biodiversity, drawing on the common heritage of humanity as a guiding principle (see Mendenhall et al 2023).…”