ABSTRACT
Geopolitics, economics, technology, and the diplomacy of the 1960s and 1970s shaped the structure of UN COPUOS and its modus operandi, and established the “spirit of the space treaties”. However, the actors and the broader context have undergone significant changes (there are new space powers and new emerging space nations, as well as private actors). Amidst these shifts, the need for sustaining the global governance of space as res communis has not become a norm-creating imperative. This is producing a number of legal lacunae, which the existing norm-creation mechanisms cannot resolve given the divergent views among Member States of the Committee on perspectives for the further development of the five UN treaties and the consensus-based nature of the Committee. Furthermore, in my opinion, these legal lacunae can lead to actual, physical consequences of diminished usability of outer space due to e.g. decreased operability of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), congestion, and chaos.
