Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Outer Space Treaty was opened for signature on the 27th of January 1967 in three countries simultaneously: the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. It entered into force on the 10th of October 1967.
The treaty prohibits placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in Earth orbit, on the Moon, or anywhere else in outer space. It also bans military bases, weapons testing, and military maneuvers on the Moon and other celestial bodies, and forbids any nation from claiming sovereignty over outer space or any celestial body.
As of October 2025, 118 countries are full parties to the Outer Space Treaty. An additional 20 states have signed but not completed ratification.
The treaty is ambiguous on this point. It bars appropriation of celestial bodies but does not explicitly address resource extraction. In 2015, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act legalized space mining under U.S. domestic law, and similar national legislation has since been introduced by Luxembourg, Japan, China, India, and Russia.
The Bogota Declaration was promulgated in 1976 by eight equatorial countries claiming sovereignty over portions of the geostationary orbit above their territory. The claims were never widely recognized internationally and were eventually abandoned; geostationary orbital slots remained under the management of the International Telecommunication Union.
Four agreements followed: the Rescue Agreement of 1968, the Space Liability Convention of 1972, the Registration Convention of 1976, and the Moon Treaty of 1979. Only 18 nations have joined the Moon Treaty; the other three have been ratified by most major space-faring nations.