Actually North Korea has signed the outer Space Treaty but not ratified it. There is some principle in law that if a treaty has been ratified by enough countries it actually is in force to some extent even for the countries that haven’t ratified it. by the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties.

I’m not a space lawyer so just to say - if you want to understand the legal issues here in detail you’ll need to ask a space lawyer, but this may help give a first idea of them - and I think the way I can help most is by drawing out the larger scale implications and the things we need to think about not just now but into the longer term future years and decades from now.

PROHIBITED FROM ACTIONS THAT GO AGAINST THE “OBJECT AND PURPOSE” OF THE OST EVEN IF THEY DON’T RATIFY IT

At this point it gets very complicated. If they have signed and not ratified, or even if they haven’t signed at all - and if enough nations have signed, then they are prohibited from actions that defeat the “object and purpose” of the Treaty.

This is by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. So there are obligations - but what they are is less clear. Space lawyers I’m sure will argue endlessly about this, what the obligations are. What counts as “going against the object and purpose” of the OST? It’s a little vague, enough for endless legal discussion of what it really means in this case.

NOT A MAJOR ISSUE AT PRESENT — HOW COULD NORTH KOREA GO AGAINST THE OST ANYWAY AT PRESENT?

But right now it’s not a major issue because North Korea isn’t really able to do much that would go against the OST. I suppose the main near term thing it could do is to put weapons of mass destruction in orbit, but it only has the capability to send small satellites into orbit at present, and it probably can’t miniaturize its nuclear weapons enough to fit them into a ballistic missile so can’t put them into orbit. It’s not suggested it wants to do anything like that.

Also it can’t send spacecraft to another planet yet so don’t really see how planetary protection would apply, nor is it in a position to try to set up a military base on another celestial body or to claim the Moon or some other celestial object or region on it for itself.

Also, there’s no way that e.g. SpaceX could try to launch from North Korea as a way to escape from the OST - which of course is deeply implausible anyway - but nor could it launch from a sea platform or another non ratifying signatory like the UAE. The problem is that SpaceX uses technology developed in the US, and employs US citizens. To get around the OST they would need to renounce their US citizenship - and also develop their own new technology not governed by US laws - because the US has an obligation under the OST to make sure its citizens abide by the OST, and also have responsibility to how their technology is used too, at least, so long as it counts as participating in the project by supplying its technology to facilitate getting them into space.

It doesn’t matter how they get into space according to those obligations - just like the way you are still subject to laws on quarantine no matter whether you move your pet dog from one country to another in a private jet or yacht or use public transport or how you do it.

I don’t know what we would do if some space faring nation were to do something against the OST and didn’t sign it, by way of actually enforcing it. I think this is one reason for proceeding with some caution when it comes to opening up outer space - it’s going to get easier and easier to get into orbit and to visit other places like the Moon, Mars etc.

WHY WE DON’T WANT A “WILD WEST” IN SPACE

Some space enthusiasts seem to like the idea of a “Wild West” out there with no rules. But stop and think about it. Do you want North Korea and other places like that to be able to send humans and spacecraft into space with no rules governing what they can do there?

We need rules in space even more so than on Earth I think, because of the powerful space technology we will have in space. Also because we will be able to do things there that we can’t do on Earth, new things that may be of great potential benefit to Earth, but they may be things that could harm us too. So many space “cadets” as it were approach this with rosy spectacles. They seem to think that we don’t need any rules because the people who go into space will either just be good people, or that for some reason they won’t need laws. But there’s a reason for those laws. I think that it’s quite an accomplishment to have the Outer Space Treaty, and that it is actually more flexible than one might think, in how it works. Space lawyers have worked out various ideas for forms of “ownership” of mines in space compatible with the treaty - though it would need a lot of work to get those hammered out into international agreements. But far far easier than trying to get something like the OST worked out from scratch - look what happened to the Moon treaty?

ARE WE EVEN BOUND TO THE “OBJECT AND PURPOSE” OF THE MOON TREATY?

Actually I’ve heard space lawyers argue that enough nations have signed the Moon treaty so that at present, it could be treated as giving the best interpretation of the OST, as there is no conflicting treaty - so other nations may be bound by it at present to some extent by the Vienna convention on the Law of Treaties. It has few ratifications (though one is the Netherlands which is relevant for “Mars One”). But there is nobody who has disputed it either.

But that’s much more controversial than the idea that they are bound by the OST. Is there any obligation to the “common heritage of mankind” provisions in the Moon treaty? I think the prevailing opinion is that there isn’t much of an obligation to that even though the Moon treaty has this provision and has been signed by enough nations to be regarded as an international treaty under the Vienna convention.

WHAT CAN ONE DO PHYSICALLY IF A NATION ACTS AGAINST THE OST?

As to what one could do physically - well I don’t think it has ever arisen, the idea of a country launching a satellite that goes against the OST. I suppose you could use an ASAT weapon to destroy it - but you wouldn’t want to cause a debris cloud, so they might use a more subtle approach - maybe the US or Russia or China could send up a spacecraft to damage it to the extent that it is useless? As it gets easier to get into space that might get harder to enforce. But at present anyway that’s for the future, and the easiest future would be if like some other agreements, like agreements on the Ozone hole, or the Antarctic treaty, it is something that most nations just accept as common sense, and nobody is interested in finding ways around it, not at least of the ones with the technology to let them do so. Then we can build within it. I think we have to see how it goes.

IDEA THAT IT’S BETTER TO SEND ONLY THOUSANDS RATHER THAN MILLIONS OF HUMANS INTO SPACE IN THE NEAR FUTURE

I think it rather depends on how rapidly we “expand into space” and it’s one reason why I think there’s no rush to send huge numbers of humans into space. If we have only thousands or tens of thousands of us in space it’s probably not going to be such a huge problem. But if we rapidly achieve cities of millions somehow in space within a few decades, that’s a level of technology where it would probably be easy for the likes of North Korea to find a way to get thousands of people into space in one way or another - and would our laws, treaties, conventions and ability to enforce treaties be able to keep up with the consequences?

If we have our focus instead on sending dozens, up to thousands of humans into space, and the focus on doing it to help Earth - scientific research, research into closed system habitats in space etc, asteroid detection and deflection, asteroid mining etc, tourism, exploration - things like that - then that’s a much healthier approach I think. Apart also from being more practical and having an immediate financial and other benefit to Earth.

We could perhaps have millions in space for short holidays - a few thousand at a time hopping over to the Moon for a weekend :). That wouldn’t stress the OST too much.

NOWHERE IN SPACE HABITABLE ENOUGH FOR MAJOR CONFLICT WITH OST - NOT WITHOUT SCI FI “MAGICAL” FUTURE TECH

Plus there is nowhere in space that is so habitable that it makes a lot of sense to treat it as a place to colonize. Not until we develop the ability to have closed system habitats that can house thousands with almost no imports or exports. That’s taken as the norm for future space colonies - that they have their own self contained habitats. But few stop to realize that we have not achieved this at present, and what an extraordinary advance over current technology that future would be.

If we had such technology, you could set up a city in the middle of any desert on Earth, using much simpler technology than we’d use in space, and it also would be self sufficient, providing all its own food, and most of its own machinery and repairs (with the magical “3D printers” of future space colony ideas). Now maybe we will have such technology in the future. But we don’t yet.

If some time in the future we do have this technology, it won’t just revolutionize space colonization. It will also revolutionize life on Earth making almost any part of Earth, no matter how inhospitable, easily habitable to humans. Earth would then be able to sustain a population of trillions probably, and what’s more, do it with almost no impact on its own native ecosystems. That would be an astonishing future, but we are nowhere near it yet.

WHAT WE CAN DO - EXPENSIVE CLOSED SYSTEM HABITATS

Now we do have something we can do in the near future. Though we haven’t yet demonstrated it in space, we may be able to create enclosed self contained habitats in space that provide all their own food and oxygen, with experiments in Russia the closest to it - the BIOS-3 experiments suggesting that 30 square meters per person would produce nearly all their food and oxygen. But that’s not even half of what we need. It’s only a small fraction of what is needed for space colonization. That’s because the “self sufficiency” there hasn’t taken account of the huge cost of the equipment itself, the habitats, the rockets to get it all there and resupply after equipment failure etc.

It’s worth doing because of the vast expense of sending provisions and water to space habitats. The recycling equipment can pay for itself over timescales of years, even for nearly complete recycling - but only because the cost is so vast to send provisions there to resupply them.

NOT WORTH IT FOR ORDINARY FOLK WHO JUST HAVE THE PRICE OF A TICKET FROM SELLING THEIR HOUSE

It wouldn’t actually make much sense to use that technology as a method of colonization in space at present I think. It makes a lot of sense for a way to explore - but the idea that you sell your house to buy a ticket into space and then when you get there, somehow you just dig in and by working hard colonize the place?

This is where the analogy with colonization of N. America breaks down. North America was already very habitable, indeed inhabited. Air to breathe - not a problem. Food, and other natural resources. No need for 3D printers. It was such a different situation from colonizing space that I don’t think the analogy actulaly helps much.

Your spacesuit itself would cost millions of dollars and probably need to be replaced after every few dozen EVAs, your “house” would cost probably hundreds of million dollars and need to be replaced every few decades. You’ve sold your house, got into space on Mars or the Moon or wherever it is - but who is going to pay for your spacesuits, habitats, environment control, and all the other high tech machinery you need just to be able to breathe? Not the people who you paid to transport you there - that makes no economic sense that you pay them the price of a house on Earth and in return they not only transport you to somewhere in space but provide you with far more expensive habitats and spacesuits with even the space suit more than an order of magnitude more expensive than your former house and needing to be replaced every few dozen EVAs. You would need very valuable exports to make economic sense of living in space as a way to colonize. That’s at present.

WHO KNOWS IN THAT MAGICAL FUTURE?

In the future with those “magical” 3D printers able to “print out” multi million dollar spacesuits and other high tech gear when fed nothing but sand and other raw ingredients, who knows! It’s just that we shouldn’t count on them yet, I don’t think it makes sense to try to colonize space on the assumption that soon after you start the process someone will invent all the technology needed to make it economic to do so. It’s too likely to become a “black hole” of an endless trillions of dollars per decade commitment to support just a few dozen people in space. If we found something valuable enough that gave us economic reason to build a big Stanford Torus or to make a lunar cave liveable or some such - maybe it would then have low enough maintenance cost per capita to maintain it once built - but there’s still the question - how do you pay for it? Remember that you have to compete with others who may mine the same resources using robots with no or hardly any humans there - so can you make the mining with humans so much more economic than mining with robots, to make it possible to build huge habitats in space for the human space miners?

WHAT COULD WE DO?

I can however see building of space habitats for tourists, space hotels, retirement homes for billionaires, and science research stations like the ones in Antarctica. Basically something like the research stations in Antarctica built in space, and the tourist trips to Antarctica and the expeditions by explorers to Antarctica.

If it’s like that for the next few decades, then there probably won’t be that much that actually challenges the OST in a significant way so long as we can find a way to do space mining consistent with it - and that I think is possible with enough good will amongst the signatories of the treaties. It will need clever space lawyers and a lot of discussion. Especially about this part of the treaty:

“The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.”

There’s a lot of discussion and varied ideas about what that means, and we need to get that sorted out. Not by editing the Outer Space treaty - that’s not possible with so many signatories. But adding other layers on top of it by way of interpretation and other conventions and agreements.

See also my books on kindle and online:

• Case For Moon First - also covers ideas of a backup on the Moon and the many advantages of the Moon over Mars for humans - wins over Mars in just about every comparison.
• Why Humans on Mars Right Now are Bad for Science. Includes: Astronaut gardener on the Moon
• OK to Touch Mars? Europa? Enceladus? Or a Tale of Missteps?