What Is COPUOS? How the UN’s Space Committee Works

What is COPUOS? It is the United Nations committee where governments negotiate the rules of outer space, and the forum behind the Outer Space Treaty. Many of the questions on this site run back to it, from who owns the Moon to who pays for falling debris.

This guide explains what the Committee is, how it works, what it can and cannot do, and what happened in 2026. It is current to 7 November 2026. I have relied on UN and UNOOSA documents where I could read them, and I say so where I could not confirm something.

What COPUOS is

The name stands for the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The UN’s own explainer calls it a multilateral forum for space governance that meets annually and has grown from 24 members to more than 100.

You will see two founding dates, and both are right. A UNOOSA briefing prepared for the 2026 cycle explains that the Committee was set up as an ad hoc body in 1958 and made permanent in 1959 by General Assembly resolution 1472 (XIV). It is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, and its work reaches the Assembly through the Fourth Committee.

Who sits on it

Only States are members. The same UNOOSA briefing names six States joining for 2026: Côte d’Ivoire, the Gambia, Honduras, the Maldives, Malta and Zimbabwe. A second UNOOSA deck lists the draft General Assembly decisions on their membership from October 2025. At the Fourth Committee on 28 October 2026, Costa Rica said the Committee “reached 110 member states” this year and that new requests are pending. UNOOSA’s own members page still gave 104 when I checked, so it has not caught up.

Intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations can be permanent observers. Counts differ by date: UNOOSA’s briefing listed 56, and the Secure World Foundation, itself an observer, counted 62 in July 2026.

Companies have no seat. The UK told the Fourth Committee that the Committee should find “new ways to attract and engage expertise from industry and academia”. Russia, by contrast, opposed drawing on extra-budgetary resources, “including from private sector representatives”.

How it is organised

The work runs through two subcommittees, the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and the Legal Subcommittee, and then the full Committee. In 2026 the UNOOSA briefing scheduled them for 2 to 13 February, 13 to 24 April and 10 to 19 June. UNOOSA’s session page shows the sixty-ninth session actually ran from 10 to 18 June. The Secure World Foundation attributes the lost day to the UN’s liquidity crisis.

Do not confuse the Committee with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs. COPUOS is the body of States; UNOOSA is the secretariat that supports it. At the Fourth Committee, Costa Rica warned that efficiency reforms could weaken the Office if not handled carefully, and called for reform “that strengthens rather than reduces the resources”.

Italy holds the chair for 2026 to 2027. Teodoro Valente, president of the Italian Space Agency, took the chair on 10 June and died on 16 July. Several delegations offered condolences in New York in October, and Thailand welcomed Ambassador Mario Cospito as he assumed the chairmanship.

What it has produced

Five treaties, in the order the UN explainer dates them: the Outer Space Treaty (1967), the Rescue Agreement (1968), the Liability Convention (1972), the Registration Convention (1976) and the Moon Agreement (1984). Nothing binding has followed.

Principles and guidelines sit alongside them: a declaration of legal principles in the 1960s, then texts on broadcasting in 1982, remote sensing in 1986, nuclear power sources in 1992 and the sharing of space benefits in 1996. The Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines date from 2007. A preamble and 21 guidelines on long-term sustainability followed at the sixty-second session in 2019.

I would not dismiss that as weak. Rosanna Hoffmann of UNOOSA tells the UN explainer that these are “non-legally binding instruments that, once implemented nationally, become legally binding”. Our guide to the debris guidelines shows how that works through licence conditions. But the shift from treaties to guidelines tells you how far agreement can now stretch. Finland’s space office puts it plainly: “It has since proved very difficult to reach a consensus on new agreements or amendments to agreements.”

Why consensus matters

The Committee decides by consensus, and has done so since its second meeting, on 19 March 1962, according to UNOOSA’s briefing. There is no vote, so in practice any one member can hold a text back.

That rule explains both the Committee’s authority and its pace. A text that survives has the backing of every space power and most of those hoping to become one. It also explains why wording can end up thin. The Secure World Foundation’s Peter Martinez argues that growing membership strengthens legitimacy but makes agreement harder, so that agreed text is sometimes “watered down”.

What happened in 2026

The clearest record of the year is the Fourth Committee debate in late October, available as automatic UN transcripts, so treat the wording as close rather than official.

The UK said that “too much of our time went on process and not enough on substance”, backed “more time to technical work in working groups and expert groups, less time to adopting reports”, and thanked delegations for the spirit “that allowed agreement on the 2027 schedule of work”. That last remark suggests the schedule needed agreeing after the June session. Russia said it would object to “the radical restructuring of the Committee by abandoning the intergovernmental nature of its work” and the principle of consensus.

On 30 October the Fourth Committee adopted this year’s omnibus draft, A/C.4/81/L.7/Rev.1, without a vote. Explanations of position showed how much had been negotiated away. The United States joined consensus on what it called a “streamlined and focused text”, said the Committee “should maintain its technical focus”, and dissociated from references to developing countries, the Sustainable Development Goals and a space and global health platform. Mexico regretted the removal of references to gender equality. El Salvador said the compressed negotiating timetable should not become a precedent. A separate Russian-backed draft, L.8, was withdrawn along with Russia’s amendments.

The text now goes to the General Assembly plenary, which UNOOSA’s briefing says acts in December.

What it does not do

COPUOS issues no licences and has no court or enforcement power. National regulators authorise and supervise activity under Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty.

Security is the contested edge. The US call for a “technical focus”, and Canada’s statement for Australia, New Zealand and Canada that it does not support language drawing “artificial distinctions” between peaceful and other uses of space systems, show where the lines run. Harder questions, like those in our piece on anti-satellite weapons, are not ones I would expect it to settle.

What is on the table

Three files matter most to lawyers and operators.

The first is space resources. A Legal Subcommittee working group chaired by Steven Freeland is drafting non-binding principles. Güneş Ünüvar reports that a consolidated draft appeared with an intersessional meeting on 24 September 2026, the first of six planned before the Legal Subcommittee meets in April 2027. Its Principle 2 would say that extraction compliant with the Outer Space Treaty “does not inherently constitute national appropriation”, wording he says recalls Section 10 of the Artemis Accords. Our explainer on who owns the Moon sets out why that matters.

The second is lunar activity. UNOOSA’s briefing lists an Action Team on Lunar Activities Consultation among the Committee’s consultation groups, a sign that coordination on the Moon is now standing business.

The third is UNISPACE IV, a proposed conference. Costa Rica told the Fourth Committee it supports convening it but that “there continues to be a financial deficit”, and Kenya linked preparations for it to orbital congestion. I could not establish a final decision as of 7 November.

What I would watch

The first is the General Assembly plenary in December. Adoption of the omnibus resolution is expected, but any change in the US or Russian position would be telling.

The second is April 2027. The Legal Subcommittee should have the space resources draft before it after six intersessional meetings. How that text handles non-appropriation and benefit sharing may set the tone for the coming decade.

The third is the next plenary session of the Committee in 2027. If the usual pattern holds, the subcommittees meet in February and April and the Committee in June. Whether delegations act on the UK’s call to spend less time on reports, and how far Russia lets the reform talk go, will say more about the health of consensus than any statement in New York.

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.