The Artemis Accords Explained: What They Say, Who Has Signed and Why It Matters

Few space law documents get signed at the rate the Artemis Accords do. In the four weeks before the end of September 2026, six countries joined: Türkiye on 31 August, Djibouti on 14 September, Albania on 21 September, Croatia on 23 September, Côte d’Ivoire on 24 September and San Marino on 25 September. NASA marked the moment with a release headed “Artemis Accords surpasses 75 signatories”, and the State Department now lists 76.

That is a remarkable number for a document with no binding force, no secretariat and no dispute settlement clause. It is also a document that is often described loosely, either as a treaty (it is not) or as an American land grab on the Moon (that is not what it says either). This explainer sets out what the text says, who has signed, and why lawyers advising lunar and resource missions should read it closely.

What the Artemis Accords are

The Accords were adopted on 13 October 2020 by eight countries: Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. NASA and the State Department co-lead them. The signed text is short, around seven pages, with thirteen sections.

Section 1 sets the tone. The Accords “represent a political commitment to the principles described herein.” They apply to civil space activities “conducted by the civil space agencies of each Signatory”, and those activities “may take place on the Moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids.” Section 2 says the principles are to be implemented through separate instruments, such as memoranda of understanding between space agencies. In practice, that is where binding obligations sit: in the bilateral agreements NASA signs for each Artemis partnership.

So the Accords are best understood as a statement of how signatories read the existing treaties, and how they intend to behave, rather than as new law. That does not make them unimportant. In international law, a consistent pattern of state statements about how a treaty should be interpreted is exactly the kind of material that shapes the meaning of that treaty over time.

What the Accords actually say

The State Department summarises the substance as ten principles. Most of them restate obligations every signatory already has under the Outer Space Treaty and the related conventions:

Peaceful purposes (Section 3): cooperative activities “should be exclusively for peaceful purposes”, consistent with international law.

Transparency (Section 4): signatories will share information about their space policies and exploration plans and release scientific results “on a good-faith basis, and consistent with Article XI of the Outer Space Treaty.”

Interoperability (Section 5) and emergency assistance (Section 6): a commitment to common infrastructure standards and to help astronauts in distress, echoing the Rescue Agreement.

Registration (Section 7): partners in a joint mission decide between themselves “which of them should register any relevant space object”, and consult non-parties to the Registration Convention where they are involved.

Release of scientific data (Section 8).

Preserving outer space heritage (Section 9): protecting “historically significant human or robotic landing sites, artifacts, spacecraft” according to standards the signatories will develop together.

Space resources (Section 10), deconfliction and safety zones (Section 11), and orbital debris (Section 12), which commits signatories to plan for debris mitigation and to “limit, to the extent practicable, the generation of new, long-lived harmful debris.”

The first seven of these would raise few eyebrows in any forum. The two that do are resources and safety zones.

Section 10: space resources

Section 10 is the political heart of the Accords. Its key sentence is that “the extraction of space resources does not inherently constitute national appropriation under Article II of the Outer Space Treaty.”

Article II says outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, “is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” The question that has divided space lawyers for decades is whether taking material out of the ground counts as “use” that amounts to appropriation. The United States answered it for its own law in 2015, when Congress gave US citizens rights to resources they obtain. Luxembourg, the UAE and Japan have since passed their own resource laws. Section 10 turns that national position into a shared one: every signatory now takes the view that extraction, by itself, is lawful.

The word “inherently” does real work. Section 10 does not say extraction can never amount to appropriation. A mining operation that excluded everyone else from a crater indefinitely might still cross the line. What it rejects is the argument that any extraction is unlawful per se, which is the position associated with the Moon Agreement and its “common heritage of mankind” language.

Section 10 also contains two commitments that are easy to miss. Signatories will inform “the Secretary-General of the United Nations” as well as the public and the scientific community of their resource extraction activities, and they intend to contribute to multilateral work on resource rules, including through the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The Accords therefore present themselves as a contribution to the UN process, not a replacement for it. For a fuller treatment of the ownership question, see our explainer on who owns the Moon.

Section 11: safety zones

Section 11 starts from Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty, which requires states to act with “due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties” and to avoid harmful interference. Each signatory “commits to respect the principle of due regard.”

It then gives that principle an operational form. A safety zone is the area in which a signatory’s nominal operations, or an anomalous event, could reasonably cause harmful interference. Signatories will notify their activities, coordinate with “any relevant actor”, and “promptly notify each other as well as the Secretary-General of the United Nations” when a zone is set up, changed or ended. The size and scope of a zone “should be determined in a reasonable manner” using accepted scientific and engineering principles, and safety zones “will ultimately be temporary, ending when the relevant operation ceases.”

Critics read this as a route to de facto territorial control: a state that lands first at a water-ice deposit near the lunar south pole could draw a generous zone around it and ask everyone else to stay out. Supporters point to the limits written into the text. Zones must be reasonable, publicly notified and temporary, and they exist to avoid interference, not to exclude. I think both readings are available, which is precisely why the practice of the next few years will matter more than the text. The first contested safety zone, if there is one, will tell us which reading wins.

The signatories have been working on this. NASA says the group has advanced recommendations on non-interference, interoperability, data sharing and registration practices, and that several agencies have submitted planned lunar mission data to the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.

Who has signed, and how fast

The growth curve explains why the Accords now matter. Eight countries signed in October 2020. India joined in June 2023 as the 27th signatory, and Germany in September 2023. By the end of 2024 there were 52. Seven more joined in 2025. In 2026, seventeen have signed so far, the most in any year: Portugal, Oman, Latvia, Jordan, Morocco, Malta, Ireland, Paraguay, Botswana, Serbia, Mauritius, Türkiye, Djibouti, Albania, Croatia, Côte d’Ivoire and San Marino.

San Marino signed on 25 September 2026 in Rimini, through its Minister of Industry and Technological Research, Rossano Fabbri, and became the 76th signatory. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman noted in the 28 September release that “nearly one-third of all signatories have joined since the start of President Trump’s second term.” NASA also says nearly two-thirds of the states that have signed the Outer Space Treaty have now signed the Accords.

The list is broader than the original Western core. It now includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan and the UAE in the Gulf; Nigeria, Rwanda, Angola, Senegal, Botswana, Morocco, Mauritius, Djibouti and Côte d’Ivoire in Africa; and Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and India in Asia. Many of these countries have small space programmes. For them, signing is a low-cost way to align with the United States on lunar exploration and to gain access to NASA cooperation, including the payload and technology opportunities NASA now offers signatories through its Moon Base programme.

Who has not signed

China and Russia are the obvious absentees. Russia has called the Accords an attempt to create international space law that favours the United States, and Chinese state-affiliated commentary has compared them to colonial enclosure. The two countries lead a separate project, the International Lunar Research Station, with its own partner agreements.

The divide is not absolute. Thailand, which signed in December 2024, and Senegal, which signed in July 2025, have also joined the Chinese-led station. That is a useful reminder that the Accords do not require exclusivity, and that smaller space nations are hedging.

Why it matters for lawyers and operators

There are three practical reasons to take a non-binding text seriously.

First, interpretation. Article 31(3) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties allows “subsequent practice” and subsequent agreements between parties to inform how a treaty is read. When 76 states, including most major spacefaring nations except China and Russia, sign a document saying extraction is not inherently appropriation, that is a significant body of state practice on the meaning of Article II. A future tribunal or UN negotiation will have to reckon with it.

Second, national licensing. The Accords apply to civil agency activities, but the principles flow into national regulation. A signatory licensing a private lunar lander or resource mission under its national space law will be expected to apply the same standards on notification, heritage protection and debris. Lawyers advising commercial lunar operators should treat the Accords as part of the compliance backdrop, alongside national rules on mission authorisation like those discussed in our piece on mission authorisation.

Third, contracts. Because the Accords are implemented through agency agreements, their principles appear in the bilateral instruments that govern Artemis partnerships and, from there, in the contracts that flow down to suppliers. Data release, registration and interoperability commitments in particular can become contractual obligations.

What I would watch

The first is the outcome of the 2026 Principals’ Meeting, which opened in Antalya, Türkiye on 5 October during the International Astronautical Congress. NASA said it would be co-chaired by NASA Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson and Major General Roberto Melgar Sheen of Peru’s space agency, CONIDA, and would address support for emerging space nations and recommendations on lunar debris mitigation. If the signatories agree concrete lunar debris guidance, it will be the first real addition to the substance of the Accords since 2020.

The second is safety zones in practice. Several landers are aiming for the lunar south pole over the next few years. The first notification of a safety zone, and any objection to it, will test whether Section 11 works as a coordination tool or becomes a source of friction.

The third is the UN track. The Accords commit signatories to multilateral work on resources. If the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space produces principles on space resource activities, the question will be how closely they track Section 10.

The fourth is whether the pace of signing holds. Seventeen signatures in one year is a political success. The harder task is turning a broad coalition into consistent behaviour on the lunar surface, which is where the Accords will finally be judged.

Anuj KumarEditor-in-Chief

Anuj Kumar is the founder of Legal Desire Media and publishes Fashion Law Journal and Space Law Journal.

Space Law Journal is a joint initiative of Legal Desire Media and Odyogeek. Spotted something we got wrong, or want to respond? Write to space@legaldesire.com.