Ostrom’s Institutional Grammar and Categorising Legal Rules about Outer Space

Abstract

Outer space paradoxically might be thought of as both belonging to no one and only accessible to a few powerful global actors, pointing to a scenario of potential conflict between proposed ideal rules of conduct relating to the exploration of outer space and the reality of largely unconstrained agency by small number of space players. Ostrom’s Institutional Grammar seeks to provide a typology of forms of regulation that can allow definition and comparison of different regulatory regimes, especially regarding common or shared resources. Several global attempts have been date to date to regulate the exploration of space, in particular, the relatively early Outer Space Treaty of 1967, while the Artemis Accords proposed by the United States are a more recent development. This paper seeks to relate the existing framework of space regulation to Ostrom’s account of an institutional grammar of rules to consider the diversity of potential regulatory approaches to space.