Is There Space for Everyone? Younger Generations and Multi-Stakeholder Engagement in International Space Law and Policy
A Conversation with Dr. Antonino Salmeri
Dr. Güneş Ünüvar
Editor-in-Chief
Pulsar
For the first edition of what will hopefully become a long-standing series of conversations with space law and policy experts, I would be hard-pressed to talk to someone more fitting than Dr. Antonino Salmeri. First of all, he is easily one of the most prominent rising stars in international space law, having already achieved an impressive professional career. Currently, he is one of the Co-Chairs of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC); has recently completed a highly innovative PhD thesis on Lunar governance (which has been published as a well-received book pretty much as is — a feat impressive in itself) at the University of Luxembourg; and has been involved in a myriad of policy initiatives, among them the ongoing Lunar Policy Platform Initiative funded by the Open Lunar Foundation, as well as the SGAC’s 2021 EAGLE Report.
Beyond his impressive credentials — which he somehow managed to cram into a little more than seven years — there is a more personal reason why Dr. Salmeri was the natural choice for this first edition. My introduction to Alpha Persei, therefore the process leading up to the establishment of the Pulsar Blog, dates back to a networking event he organized in Luxembourg, sometime in early 2022. Barely a few months into my decision to start a research project on international space law, I found myself at a “Space Café” at the Mousel Brewery in Clausen, down by the Alzette River, at the centre of Luxembourg. It was my first time among the brilliant engineers, entrepreneurs, officials, researchers, and policy-makers active in Luxembourg’s vibrant space sector. That is when I met Harry Ghillemyn, one of the co-founders of Alpha Persei and the driving force behind it. Shortly after, I started conceptualizing what has now culminated into this very blog. Dr. Salmeri’s drive for bringing people together, which also reflects in his professional work, is quite literally the starting point of it all.
Below are the highlights of our very insightful conversation in May 2023 in Limpertsberg where we discuss making a tangible, impactful difference in international space law and policy, the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement, as well as the future of space activities on the Moon and beyond.
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Dr. Salmeri began his legal training at the University of Catania, in Italy, where his dissertation focused on constitutional law and general theory of law. “I have always been very passionate about governance systems and political systems, how they are designed, and how institutions play a role”, he notes. After doing his first LLM on European Union law in Rome, he quickly realized that EU law was a highly saturated field: “EU law is quite inflated and it would have taken me a very long time to have a meaningful impact, and I really like to make a practical difference.” This principle, namely making a difference, seems to have driven his every move from then on.
It was around this time, in late 2016, that he was introduced to the universe of space law through a presentation by Elon Musk. “He was devising this plan to establish a colony on Mars — I was fascinated,” he recalls. However, he quickly adds that he does not endorse Mr. Musk’s more recent trajectory: “At the time, he was different.” Then, the urge to make an impact, to instigate a change, kicked in. “I have always been passionate about astrophysics and engineering. When I found out about Musk’s plan, I started thinking: in order to have a colony on Mars, you need laws. Someone will need to rule this colony. There will need to be sovereignty and jurisdiction. How do we answer these questions?” He quickly discovered the so-called Outer Space Treaty (OST) and the Moon Agreement. Reading about the non-appropriation principle enshrined under Article 2 of the OST, which prohibits national appropriation of outer space by claim of sovereignty or any other means, he immediately realized the unique characteristics of the field. “No sovereignty? It was incredible. Overall, it also matched my interest in governance systems,” he recalls.
The first breaking point was his decision to study space law in Leiden back in 2017, under the supervision of Prof. Tania Masson-Zwaan. “That changed my life forever,” he says. “I wanted to write a dissertation on a possible constitution for Mars, but Prof. Masson-Zwaan encouraged me to focus on something more practical — namely, space resources.” Barely two years after the promulgation of the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, coupled with the then-brand-new 2017 law in Luxembourg, the timing seemed impeccable. Ultimately, he wrote a thesis on the interpretation of ambiguous provisions through national legislation, which was published in the Journal of Space Law.
Despite distancing himself from more traditional reiterations of constitutional law, it is evident that his foundations firmly grounded in this field has had an impact on his work on space regulation. It wouldn’t be too farfetched to argue that the OST provides a constitutional framework (it is often called the ‘Magna Carta’ of space law) for the regulation of space activities. It is broad in scope, assertive in its aspirations — but like many constitutions, general in its language and often lacks further specification. It is through national frameworks that this general framework trickles down. His work on space law gives a novel twist to this constitutionalist approach.
Shortly after, and with the emergence of the Artemis Programme, his interest in space resources zoomed in on the Moon. A myriad of issues remained unresolved. “You need to find a site, you need to land on the site, you need to establish infrastructure, get power, get transportation, and then you need to find the resources, and then you need to start mining it, then processing, storing, and transporting. None of this will happen in a safe and sustainable manner if you don’t have appropriate governance mechanisms in place.” These considerations eventually prompted him to start his PhD research, which he now completed and published as a book, on the multi-level governance of space mining on the Moon.
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In addition to his academic work, Dr. Salmeri is deeply involved in the work of several non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In general, NGOs are embedded within different layers of international law and policy-making. They provide key expertise on matters of importance, they help identify priorities for future policymaking, and give direction to how current points of contention can be addressed in a way that takes different stakeholders’ perspectives into account. International space law happens to be one of these domains where NGOs and other non-state entities substantially contribute to this process of policy-making, which is something that became clear to Dr. Salmeri during his PhD. He began to actively collaborate with the SGAC, a reputable global NGO and a professional network which places a great emphasis on the cross-generational dialogue and the representation of younger generations on matters concerning space. It was this cross-generational perspective that caught his attention, as it elevated the voices of the future generations. “When you are saying something on behalf of the young generation, it starts to have a more practical value as well. So I transformed my research into policy positions that could be advocated by the young generation.”
Continuously driven by making a tangible and practical impact, he founded the so-called Effective and Adaptive Governance for a Lunar Ecosystem (EAGLE) Project under the auspices of SGAC, which eventually culminated in the EAGLE Report, prepared by a team of 14 young experts across different disciplines. The Report proposes the adopting of a Lunar Charter to give a regulatory foundation to the future Lunar activities. In June 2021, it was presented during the 60th Session of the Legal Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). “It offered me the opportunity to start getting involved in the discussion with more actionable proposals,” Dr. Salmeri says, emphasizing that this was the beginning of his focus on the broader civil society beyond the generational layers. “That’s when I started working with the Open Lunar Foundation. As a policy analyst, I was helping them to understand the policy implications of their mission, which is to promote the cooperative and peaceful development of the moon. And then towards the end of [2022], I realized that I wanted to start something dedicated specifically to lunar policy and the applicable standards of behavior.” He proposed, and received funding for, the Lunar Policy Platform Initiative — a project primarily focused on establishing and maintaining multi-stakeholder communication on safe and sustainable lunar development. “The goal is to develop some predictability into how we conduct activities on the Moon, formalizing expectations of behavior and understanding, for example, if you want to establish a landing site on the Moon, the processes that you need to go through. If you have finally established a landing site, how do you manage it, and how do you handle your relationship with others active on the surface? The idea was that we needed an actor who connects all other actors.”
Dr. Salmeri believes that this high involvement of NGOs and other non-state actors in international space law and policy was an incremental process, but it certainly comes with the territory. “Space law is 70 or 80 per cent international law. Because of that, it remains in the hands of states. The law-making is done through international treaties and soft law instruments. However, because of the increased role that space plays in the global scene, the complexities that the private sector and NewSpace involvement brings, as well as the increased difficulty in governing space, the involvement of non-governmental entities has increased.” In addition to the SGAC and Open Lunar, in which he is directly involved, he quickly names the International Institute for Space Law, Secure World Foundation, and For All Moonkind as other examples.
As of 2023, 49 NGOs, academic institutions, and other non-governmental entities hold permanent observer status at the UNCOPUOS, the primary global multilateral forum where international space law and policy is regularly discussed. “[All of the NGOs above] are observers at the UNCOPUOS,” he notes. “Because of the intergovernmental nature of UNCOPUOS, they are not entitled to take any decision or contribute to any decision-making. Even though observers get the opportunity to speak, and sometimes their contributions are invited, primary inputs are provided by States — who hold the control of the process. They have the discretion to do what they want with the information provided by the observers. This is a bit different than the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) system, which incorporates a sector membership for NGOs and private organizations. Even sector membership does not provide the right to vote, but it gives private actors an autonomous channel to provide their input.” However, despite this limited role NGOs might seem to have on paper, the reality is more complex. “In practice, the relevance of NGOs comes from the unique expertise and perspective they can provide, because States know very well that they do not have all the answers to the questions that we need to address.”
An important layer to NGO and civil society participation is that it boosts the systemic legitimacy, where different perspectives of different layers of society are heard and, to the extent possible, incorporated into the law and policy-making — both substantially and procedurally. “On a substantive level, if we are talking about how to keep the skies clean and free from debris [in reference to the Dark and Quiet Skies Initiative], therefore usable by generations for observation of the stars, or if you are thinking about what to do and how to do it on the Moon, non-state engagement becomes critical. Even though, and legally speaking, the Moon is not the heritage of humankind except for the Moon Agreement parties, it is still culturally very relevant and important to all of us. Spiritually, it is considered to be sacred by many cultures around the world. When you include the input of young generations, indigenous organizations, scientists, and companies, you will see an important difference.”
In addition, non-state participation in these processes can elevate the legitimacy of the process, beyond the substance itself. The process, however, is inherently state-centric in the sense that it does not have a structural preconceptualization of how non-state actors ought to participate in the process. “The world is much more complex than that. We cannot grasp everything through legally binding instruments or even soft law instruments. There is a whole realm of norms of behavior and practical considerations that will not be developed by states, either because they don’t have the capacity, or because they don’t have the interest. And that is where NGOs can play an increasingly important role. The problem is that there are no structures or processes to navigate this realm, and create content. It happens pretty much randomly, based on the initiative that one or two actors have. It is not systematic, regularized, or holistic. So there is room for NGOs to come in and give a framework to these processes to make sure that on top of international law, or at the bottom of international law and everything, we also have coordinated development of policies and standards of behavior. This is also what the Lunar Policy Platform is set out to do — providing a space, and institutionalized processes, for discussing about policies and standards of behavior and increase predictability in the system.”
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In the course of our conversation, I found myself fascinated by, and constantly going back to, the work conducted by the SGAC and the demography it asserts to represent. Coming from an international economic law background, the notion of a non-governmental institution acting on behalf of ‘young generations’ is as novel as it is ingenious to me. My experience in observer participation in multilateral law and policy-making initiatives, among them the United National Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Working Group III (WGIII) on Investor-State Dispute Settlement, is relatively bland. As of 2023, around 40 observers regularly attend UNCITRAL WGIII. The overwhelming majority of the non-governmental observers are either arbitration centers or academic institutions. There are those who explicitly favor the status quo and attend the meetings to voice the concerns of foreign investors, and others who are vehemently critical of the current state of affairs and emphasize a broader societal engagement in addressing the reform process; but none expressly seek, for example, to ensure that the international foreign investment protection regime should take the concerns and perspective of future generations into account. International space law is, to my knowledge (as was also concurred by Dr. Salmeri), the only field of international law where such cross-generational platform is provided.
Dr. Salmeri is certainly aware of this void in other fields. “Even though in climate change there are some small groups, there is nothing like SGAC, at least not as large,” he observes. While he sees this as a problem, he is hopeful about the future. “The United Nations Secretary-General is proposing the development of an intergovernmental forum for youth engagement and providing the opinion of the young generation at the UN level. This is part of the plan for the UN Summit of the Future that will take place in 2024. So I think, if anything, [SGAC] is actually a blueprint for other sectors to start doing the same in their own area.”
It is admittedly a professional deformation on my end, but I need things defined when they can be. What exactly is meant by ‘younger generations’? “Based on our statutes and bylaws, anyone between the ages 18 and 35,” Dr. Salmeri clarifies. (Editor’s note: I still have about half a year before I fall outside the scope of SGAC). And what does representing an entire generation –or multiple layers of different generations- look like? Younger generations, just like previous generations, harbour a multitude of diverging and clashing opinions — our societies are defined not only through shared feats but also our social, political, economic frictions. How does the SGAC address these differences? Has there been any pushback, any denouncement by the members of this so-called younger generations? “SGAC has existed for over 20 years right now. We have representation in 165 countries. We have about 25,000 members all around the world, and we have a number of different sections, or pillars, as we call them, in SGAC. There is a whole structure that substantiates this claim or assertion of representing the young generation. We have never received any pushback — nobody ever said, ‘You don’t represent us’,” he notes. Despite any divergence the younger generations will have, his emphasis rested on the undeniable fact that they would share a fraction of time and space on our Earth’s lifespan, during which decisions taken in the past would unleash their consequences on them.
He maintains that this perspective was surprisingly missing from the SGAC’s modus operandi when he first got involved. “I was witnessing the community coming together, at least states, to decide what to do with, say, the Moon. Companies were trying to come up with their own ideas as well, in line with their goals. I was seeing that the voice of the youth was missing in that process. No one was saying, you know, ‘The Moon belongs to us. Whatever you decide today, we will bear the consequences of it in 30, 40, 50 years. You should consult us if anyone else, we should have a say in this, or at least should provide our opinion.’ That there was no one providing that voice, no one providing that viewpoint, no one saying this is what the youth wants. I wanted to change this.”
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By this point, I was very eager to hear what Dr. Salmeri had in store for the future. “I want to dedicate the best of my energies to the Lunar Policy Platform,” he responds. “I want to establish, coordinate, and manage this dedicated platform for the identification of lunar policy priorities and the development of standards of behavior for safe, predictable, and sustainable lunar activities. I am in the process of gathering partners, contributors, advisors, and sponsors to make sure that this proceeds in the right direction. We are actually starting a pilot in [June 2023], and in November, we will present the results of this pilot at the Paris Peace Forum, which is a global, high-level, diplomatic forum that takes place every year. At that event, we will have a roundtable to introduce our first Lunar Priorities Report. We will outline and explain what the community undergirding the lunar ecosystem thinks are the priorities to be addressed. Once we have done that, we will start working on these priorities, item by item.”
As also evidenced by his existing work, he seeks to deliver impactful, tangible outputs and contribute to how humanity will engage with the rest of the universe. He does not outright exclude a return to academia, but he remains resolute about the impact factor. “I don’t know if I will go back to academia. I mean, some research every now and then, I like it and I think it is important, but I want to dedicate my energies to deliver practical impact. Between now and April 2025, I am in the leadership of SGAC, so I have that responsibility towards the organization. I will carry it forward to the best of my abilities, and the priority for me in that area is to bring SGAC to contribute to key global processes such as the UN Summit of the Future or the Astra Carta.”
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My conversation with Dr. Salmeri lasted less than an hour, but it was nothing short of a well-informed, multi-layered lecture in its own right. The work conducted by NGOs, like SGAC and Open Lunar, are potentially paradigm-altering. International space law and the intense engagement by the NGOs in it is a living, breathing example of how non-state actors can contribute to the making of international legal and political orders through expertise and valuable policy work. They can provide immense support on how to set our priorities straight. It shakes the traditional dominance of (and perhaps the overreliance on) states over the creation and maintenance of the international legal order in ways not possible in many other legal fields today. What is even more heartening is that as non-state actors are willing to participate, states appear to be willing to allow them. It is seen as a way to democratize and legitimize the way international law is made, and as Dr. Salmeri also notes, international space law could serve as a blueprint in other fields of international law.
There is no question that the multitude of perspectives from all layers of our society enriches our engagement with outer space. One cannot help but hope that, as humanity ventures farther into space, the lopsided interests dominating our planet, the senseless destruction we have wrought on our home, the mistakes we have committed down here, are a little less likely to repeat themselves. Ultimately, I believe, this is what the struggle is for.
