PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Space Technol.
Sec. Space Economy
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frspt.2025.1594352
This article is part of the Research TopicOuter space - Is it a global commons?View all 5 articles
Rebalancing Space Governance: A Global South Perspective on Outer Space as a Global Commons
Provisionally accepted
- 1LIFE-To & Beyond Foundation, Kolkata, India
- 2ACES Worldwide, Arlington, VA, United States
- 3Universidade da Força Aérea (UNIFA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Human activities beyond Earth are pacing upincreasing, spannencompassing military, commercial, and scientific dimensions. In such a scenario, the concept of outer space as a shared heritage of humankind faces an unprecedented pressure. Originally dominated by military applications following World War II, outer space has transformed into an arena where public and private space agencies are increasingly interested in utilizingutilization of space resourceresources. In this, onOn the one hand, the US Artemis Accords and Indian Space Policy 2023 facilitate space commercialization, that which potentially compromises the global commons principle, whereas., Oon the other hand, pressing issues such as the proliferation of space debris, militarization tendencies, and planetary protection issues necessitate concerted and anticipatory international actions. Resulting in a scenario, where, the Global South,This has resulted in a scenario where fair and equitable access to space governance for the Global South fair and equitable access to space governance is more than just a symbolic representation. As a resultTherefore, the this manuscript aims to examine space governance structures, particularly from the perspective of the Global South's view point, where, through the analysis of structural imbalances in existing governance frameworks, we find avenues guided by the spirit of environmental law towards a more participatory engagement that guarantees outer space to remain a global commons serving all of humanity and not a projection of earthly power imbalances into space.
Keywords: Space law, Global South, Environmental Law, Global commons, Outer space, Space sustainability, Space governance, Space Exploration
Received: 15 Mar 2025; Accepted: 26 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Palit, Dias and Hazra. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sibsankar Palit, LIFE-To & Beyond Foundation, Kolkata, India
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