9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Right now, there's a lot[br]happening with the Moon.

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China has announced plans[br]for an inhabited South Pole station

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
by the 2030s,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the United States has[br]an official road map

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
seeking an increasing number of people[br]living and working in space.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This will start with[br]NASA's Artemis program,

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an international program to send[br]the first woman and the next man

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to the Moon this decade.

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Billionaires and the private sector[br]are getting involved

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in unprecedented ways.

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There are over a hundred[br]launch companies around the world

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and roughly a dozen private[br]lunar transportation companies

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
readying robotic missions[br]to the lunar surface.

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We have reusable rockets[br]for the first time in human history.

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This will enable the development[br]of infrastructure

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and utilization of resources.

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While estimates vary, scientists think

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
there could be up to a billion metric tons[br]of water ice on the Moon.

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That's greater than the size of Lake Erie,

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and enough water to support[br]perhaps hundreds of thousands of people

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living and working on the Moon.

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So although official plans[br]are always evolving,

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there's real reason to think[br]that we could see people

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starting to live and work on the Moon[br]in the next decade.

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However, the Moon is roughly[br]the size of the continent of Africa,

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and we're starting to see[br]that the key resources

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may be concentrated in small areas

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near the poles.

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This raises important questions about[br]coordinating access to scarce resources,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and there are also legitimate questions[br]about going to the Moon:

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colonialism, cultural heritage,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and reproducing the systemic inequalities[br]of today's capitalism.

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And more to the point,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
don't we have enough[br]big challenges here on Earth?

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Internet governance, pandemics, terrorism,

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and, perhaps most importantly,[br]climate crisis and biodiversity loss.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In some senses,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the idea of the Moon as just a destination

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embodies these problematic qualities.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It conjures a frontier attitude

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of conquest,

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big rockets and expensive projects,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
competition and winning.

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But what's most interesting about the Moon

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isn't the billionaires with their rockets,

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or the same old[br]power struggle between states.

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In fact, it's not the hardware at all.

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It's the software.

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It's the norms, customs and laws.

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It's our social technologies.

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And it's the opportunity to update

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
our democratic institutions

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and the rule of law

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to respond to a new era[br]of planetary-scale challenges.

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I'm going to tell you about[br]how the Moon can be a canvass

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for solving some of our biggest[br]challenges here on Earth.

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I've been kind obsessed with this topic

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
since I was a teenager.

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I've spent the last two decades[br]working on international space policy,

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but also on small community projects[br]with bottom-up governance design.

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When I was 17,

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I went to a UN conference

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on the peaceful uses[br]of outer space in Vienna.

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Over two weeks, 160 young people[br]from over 60 countries

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
were crammed into a big hotel[br]next to the UN building.

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We were invited to make recommendations

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to Member States

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about the role of space[br]in humanity's future.

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After the conference,

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some of us were so inspired

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that we actually decided[br]to keep living together.

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Now, living with 20 people[br]might sound kind of crazy,

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but over the years it enabled us[br]to create a high-trust group

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that allowed us to experiment[br]with these social technologies.

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We designed governance systems[br]ranging from assigning a CEO

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to using a jury process,

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and as we grew into our careers,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and we moved from DC think tanks[br]to working for NASA

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to starting our own companies,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
these experiments enabled us to see

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
how even small groups

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could be a petri dish

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for important societal questions[br]such as representation,

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sustainability or opportunity.

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People often talk about the Moon

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as a petri dish,

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or even a blank slate,

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but because of the legal agreements

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that govern the Moon,

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it actually has something[br]very important in common

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with our global challenges here on Earth.

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They both involve issues

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that require us to think[br]beyond territory and borders,

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meaning the Moon is actually[br]more of a template

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
than a blank slate.

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Signed in 1967,

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the Outer Space Treaty

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is the defining treaty governing[br]activities in outer space,

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including the Moon,

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and it has two key ingredients

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that radically alter the basis

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on which laws can be constructed.

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The first is a requirement for free access[br]to all areas of a celestial body.

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And the second is that the Moon[br]and other celestial bodies

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are not subject to national appropriation.

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Now, this is crazy,

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because the entire earthly[br]international system --

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the United Nations,

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the system of treaties[br]and international agreements,

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is built on the idea of state sovereignty,

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on the appropriation of land[br]and resources within borders

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and the autonomy to control free access

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
within those borders.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
By doing away with both of these,

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we create the conditions[br]for what are called the commons.

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Based on the work

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of Nobel Prize-winning[br]economist Elinor Ostrom,

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global commons are those resources[br]that we all share,

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that require us to work together[br]to manage and protect

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
important aspects[br]of our survival and wellbeing,

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like climate or the oceans.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Commons-based approaches

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
offer a greenfield for institution design

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that's only beginning to be explored

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
at the global and interplanetary level.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
What do property rights look like,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and how do we manage resources,

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when the traditional tools[br]of external authority

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and private property don't apply?

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Though we don't have all the answers,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
climate, internet governance,[br]authoritarianism,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
these are all deeply existential threats

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that we have failed to address[br]with our current ways of thinking.

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Successful paths forward[br]will require us to develop new tools.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So how do we incorporate[br]commons-based logic

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
into our global and space institutions?

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Well, here's one attempt

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that came from an unlikely source.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
As a young activist in World War II,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Arvid Pardo was arrested[br]for anti-fascist organizing

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and held under death sentence[br]by the Gestapo.

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After the war,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
he worked his way[br]into the diplomatic corps,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
eventually becoming

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the first permanent representative[br]of Malta to the United Nations.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Pardo saw that international law[br]did not have the tools

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to address management[br]of shared global resources,

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such as the high seas.

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He also saw an opportunity to advocate[br]for equitable sharing between nations.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In 1967, Pardo gave a famous speech[br]to the United Nations

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
introducing the idea

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that the oceans and their resources

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were the "common heritage of mankind."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The phrase was eventually adopted[br]as part of the Law of the Sea Treaty,

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probably the most sophisticated[br]commons management regime

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on the planet today.

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It was seen as a watershed moment,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a constitution for the seas.

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But the language proved so controversial

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that it took over 12 years[br]to gain enough signatures

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for the treaty to enter into force,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and some states still refuse to sign it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The objection was not so much[br]about sharing per se,

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but the obligation to share.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
States felt that the principle of equality

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undermined their autonomy

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and state sovereignty,

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the same autonomy and state sovereignty

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that underpins international law.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So in many ways,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the story of the common heritage principle

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is a tragedy,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but it's powerful because[br]it makes plain the ways

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in which the current world order

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
will put up antibodies and defenses

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and resist attempts at structural reform.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But here's the thing:

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the outer space treaty has already[br]made these structural reforms.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
At the height of the Cold War,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
terrified that each[br]would get to the Moon first,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the United States and the USSR

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
made the Westphalian equivalent[br]of a deal with the devil.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
By requiring free access[br]and preventing territorial appropriation,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we are required to redesign[br]our most basic institutions

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and perhaps in doing so

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
learn something new[br]we can apply here on Earth.

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So although the Moon might seem[br]a little far away sometimes,

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how we answer basic questions now

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
will set precedent[br]for who has a seat at the table

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and what consent looks like,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and these are questions of social technology,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
not rockets and hardware.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In fact, these conversations[br]are starting to happen right now.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The space community is discussing[br]basic shared agreements

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
such as, how do we designate[br]lunar areas as heritage sites?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And how do we get permission[br]for where to land

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when traditional external authority

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
doesn't apply?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
How do we enforce requirements[br]for coordination

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when it's against the rules[br]to tell people where to go?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And how do we manage[br]access to scarce resources

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such as water, minerals,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or even the peaks of eternal light,

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craters that sit[br]at just the right latitude

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to receive near constant exposure[br]to sunlight, and therefore power?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Now, some people think[br]that the lack of rules on the Moon

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is terrifying.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And there are legitimately[br]some terrifying elements of it.

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If there are no rules on the Moon,

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then won't we end up[br]in a first-come, first-served situation?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And we might,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if we dismiss this moment.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But not if we're willing to be bold

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and to engage the challenge.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
As we learned in our communities[br]of self-governance,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's easier to create something new[br]than trying to dismantle the old.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And where else but the Moon

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
can we prototype[br]new institutions at global scale

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in a self-contained environment[br]with the exact design constraints needed

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for our biggest challenges here on Earth?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Back in 1999,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the United Nations taught[br]a group of young space geeks

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that we could think bigger,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that we could impact nations[br]if we chose to.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Today, the stage is set for the next step,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to envision what comes after

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
territory and borders.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Thank you.