Abstract
This chapter explains the ratification, main contents, and prospect of the 1979 Moon Agreements. The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, better known as the Moon Treaty or Moon Agreement, is a multilateral treaty that turns jurisdiction of all celestial bodies (including the orbits around such bodies) over to the participant countries. Thus, all activities would conform to international law, including the United Nations Charter. It has not been ratified by any state that engages in self-launched human spaceflight or has plans to do so (e.g., the United States, the larger part of the member states of the European Space Agency, Russia [former Soviet Union], People's Republic of China, and Japan). As of January 2019, 18 states are parties to the treaty. As the current Moon Agreement has emerged as a problem as the United States and other major powers are not joining it, many lawyers, professors, and scientists urged that the powers ratify it quickly.
Top6.3. Negotiations By Uncopuos
While the “national” treaty explicitly allows commercial mining, other experts argue that these new national laws are inconsistent with the Moon Agreement and customary international law.8 Other experts affirm that the Moon Agreement does allow commercial mining, after creating the needed international regulations. This has created a controversy on claims and on mining rights.
Top6.4. Main Contents
The Moon Agreement would apply to the moon and to other celestial bodies within the Solar System, other than the Earth, including orbits around or other trajectories to or around them. It also expresses a desire to prevent the Moon from becoming a source of international conflict. The Moon Agreement proposes to establish an “international regime” or “framework of laws” that apply to the Moon and to other celestial bodies within the Solar System, including orbits around or other trajectories to or around them.9
The Moon Agreement lays several provisions outlined in 21 articles. In Article 1, the treaty makes a declaration that the Moon should be used for the benefit of all states and all peoples of the international community. It reiterates that lunar resources are “not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”10
It also expresses a desire to prevent the Moon from becoming a source of international conflict, so that the resources should be used exclusively for peaceful purposes. To those ends, the treaty lays several provisions, and some of these are paraphrased below:
Key Terms in this Chapter
Helium-3: Existence of lunar helium-3, to be used as fuel for fusion reactors, is well documented; verified from numerous Apollo and Luna mission samples, current analyses indicate that there are at least 1 million tones embedded in the lunar surface. The Helium-3 would be used as fuel for fusion reactors. Moon gas may solve earth's energy crisis. The value of Helium-3 is that it can generate nuclear power and, as a consequence, energy in a clean way, namely through a process of nuclear fusion which does not produce toxic waste. Thanks to these special characteristics, the extraction of Helium-3 is likely to have a huge impact on the way energy is produced and distributed on earth. Helium-3 is deposited on the lunar surface by solar winds and would have to be extracted from moon soil and rocks. As space superpowers such as the United States, Russia, European Union, China, Japan and India has interested in Helium-3 that it is more expensive 300 times than gold, so it may be become a supremacy country in the future resources war from mining Helium-3 in the moon to bring it to earth for the purpose of getting it in advance.
Solar System: The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwarf planets, and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury. The Solar System also contains smaller objects. The asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with the majority of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being primarily composed of rock and metal.
Mining Right: Mining Right means an exclusive license or licenses to commercially mine the gold and other metals or minerals in the Project Area. Mining rights are property rights to exploit and develop an area for the minerals it harbors. Mining rights are the right to dig and acquire registered minerals and other minerals existing in similar deposits in certain land areas (mining areas) registered under the Mining Act. The detailed provisions of mining rights are stipulated in the Mining Law. Mineral rights can refer to sedentary minerals that do not move below the Earth's surface or fluid minerals such as oil or natural gas. There are two types of mining rights such as exploration right and mineral rights.
Natural Lunar Resources: The Moon bears substantial natural resources which could be exploited in the future. Potential lunar resources may encompass process able materials such as volatiles and minerals, along with geologic structures such as lava tubes that together, might enable lunar habitation. The use of resources on the Moon may provide a means of reducing the cost and risk of lunar exploration and beyond. Solar power, oxygen, and metals are abundant resources on the Moon. Elements known to be present on the lunar surface include, among others, hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), Silicon (Si), iron (Fe), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), aluminum (Al), manganese (Mn) and titanium (Ti).
Other Celestial Bodies: Celestial bodies or heavenly bodies are objects in space such as the sun, moon, planets and stars. A natural celestial object, visible in the sky, such as a star, planet, natural satellite, asteroid, comet, the Moon or the Sun. The term celestial body is as expansive as the entire universe, both known and unknown. By definition a celestial body is any natural body outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. Easy examples are the Moon, Sun, and the other planets of our solar system. But those are very limited examples. The Kuiper belt contains many celestial bodies. Any asteroid in space is a celestial body.