Celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2017, the UN Outer Space Treaty (OST) serves as the foundation of international space law. Since the OST, governments have agreed, through the UN, a growing list of treaties, principals and guidelines that, collectively, constitute the normative framework governing activities in outer space. This framework has been instrumental in sustaining over half a century of exponential growth in space activities and the global space economy.

Today, stakeholders around the world are accessing the space environment and investing their political and economic capital in space activities. With this explosion of new actors, there is a pressing need to enhance efforts to raise awareness of, and adherence to, the existing normative framework governing outer space activities.

UNOOSA works with stakeholders across the legal, policy and capacity building aspects of international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space. In this context, UNOOSA offers space law capacity-building and legal advisory services, targeted and tailored, for regulatory authorities of new and emerging space-faring nations.

These activities facilitate, on request, countries to draft national space law and/or policy that is in line with the international normative framework on space. Furthermore, these services contribute to raising global adherence to - and awareness of - the existing international and legal instruments on outer space, for the benefit of established and emerging space-faring nations alike.