India signs the Artemis Accords / X/@@SenBillNelson

In ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ Garett Hardin (1968) pointed out to the law of diminishing returns while using a common resource such as air or water. Instead of cutting back and allowing time for the resource to regenerate, man intensifies efforts to maximise whatever is left, ultimately resulting in destruction of that resource for all of humanity. 

Space is increasingly being recognised as a global common today and countries are enhancing their space capabilities for commercial and security purposes. Currently, US is the only State to have an independent US Space Force , while many other countries such as China, Russia or France have units dealing with Space within their larger Air and other Defence forces. 

India established the Space Defence Agency in 2018 as a tri-service agency but as of now it is still in the fledgling stage. It is interesting to note that while all these countries are parties to the Outer Space Treaty (1967), none of them have ratified the subsequent Moon Treaty  (1979) which tried to create a set of principles governing States and Non State organizations who explore celestial bodies, as well as ‘administration of resources’ that result from such an exploration. 

It is on this backdrop that India’s signing of the Artemis Accords – the US initiated and led agreement on celestial bodies exploration and research – needs to be viewed. Opened for signature in 2020, the Artemis Accords lay down ‘principles of cooperation in civil exploration and use of the moon, Mars, comets and asteroids for peaceful purposes’. 

The Accords aim to eventually send Astronauts to the moon once again, build a space camp, establish ‘safety zones’, and carry out deep space exploration. India signed these Accords in June 2023, few weeks before launching of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

This signing of the Artemis Accords is significant as they raise certain questions. First, how do the Artemis accords, fit in India’s space ambitions? Second, by signing the unilaterally drafted and non negotiated Accords, is India indicating a shift in the global space governance regime? Third, how does this signing reflect in the context of larger India-US bilateral relations?

In 2023, ISRO released India’s Space Policy. This was a tectonic shift in India’s hitherto Space diplomacy because it opened doors for private sector participation in the ‘space value chain’. The policy also highlights roles of institutions such as IN-SPACe as a single window agency to authorise State and Non State activities in outerspace and, NewSpace India Ltd for commercialising space technologies and platforms and leasing or procuring space assets from other State/Non State Actors. 

This is where the Artemis Accords come in as India and the US will not only share space related data (we already have knowledge sharing agreements in place) but also technology, resources and might engage in partnerships for lunar and other explorations. This will prove crucial as India is poised for a more assertive role in outerspace in the coming  months starting with the Gaganyaan Mission of sending humans to outerspace, and the upcoming Mars and Venus Orbiter Missions.

Additionally, while the Space Policy avoids an emphasis on ‘security’, recent partnerships of India within and outside QUAD have indicated the growing priorities of India in using Space as the final defence frontier. The Artemis partnership while not directly influencing space security, will have many fallout’s in terms of surveillance, technology updation and training which will impact this priority as well.

Second, the global governance on outerspace is delineated by the existing agreements on the use of outerspace, registration of space vehicles, rescue and return of astronauts and liabilities in outerspace. Negotiated under the aegis of UN, these agreements have been debated, amended and been a consultative and participatory process. 

In contrast, the Artemis Accords have been unilaterally drafted by the US and have been opened for signature in a ‘my way or the highway’ approach. Admittedly, the Artemis Accords do refer and affirm the principles of the aforementioned treaties, however, there are certain provisions in them that are not explicitly provided for in the other instruments. 

For example, the Accords envisage ‘deconfliction of Space activities’ by creating ‘safety zones’ on the lunar surface which can be created by a Signatory to the Accord and can be visited on request by another Signatory only. Such provisions can potentially conflict with the fundamental principle of non-sovereign nature of space.  

Similarly, there are special sections on interoperability of infrastructure and standards, release of scientific data and mitigation of orbital debris. India’s signing of these accords, is an explicit acknowledgement that individual States can now dictate Space governance principles, and also that new principles could be laid out in these agreements. This in turn could translate into India exploring similar such asymmetric Space advantage within the SAARC or BIMSTEC region. 

Finally, the signing of the Artemis accords by India is another progression in the growing Indo-US bilateral relationship spanning values and common interests, Indo-Pacific, Defence and counter terrorism, Strategic partnership, Economic and Commercial Interests. Our G2G, B2B and P2P interactions have consistently increased since the turn of the century and this partnership is viewed as beneficial, necessary and relevant by both countries. 

Space then, is undoubtedly the next big domain for power play, and the Artemis Accords firmly place the US-India partnership in this context. Having said this, the chances are not remote for other big players in outerspace such as China or Russia opening up their own unilateral agreements for signing. The challenge for India’s space diplomacy is then to navigate through the possibility that this fragmented and new governance of outerspace should not result in the Tragedy of the Outerspace Global Commons.

 

 The author is from the Dept. of International Studies, Women’s Christian College, Chennai