Governance in Space

Earth’s orbit is a common pool resource without a central authority controlling who is doing what. This results in a serious governance and collective action problem that some refer to as the ‘Wild West’. SpaceX gets a lot of attention in this debate as they have acquired more than 25% of the 9,000 satellites in Earth’s orbit, but there are over 1500 ‘space actors’ involved, from over 200 countries, the vast majority of which are for-profit entities.

 This event looks at the intricate landscape of governance in space. It will consider:

• What institutions or agreements are in place to address how nations play fair? What should be in place?
• What’s at stake if agreements aren’t made, and abided by?
• Who is leading on these challenges?