WEBVTT

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Right now, there's a lot
happening with the Moon.

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China has announced plans
for an inhabited South Pole station

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by the 2030s,

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and the United States has
an official road map

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seeking an increasing number of people
living and working in space.

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This will start with
NASA's Artemis program,

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an international program to send
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
are getting involved

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in unprecedented ways.

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There are over a hundred
launch companies around the world

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and roughly a dozen private
lunar transportation companies

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readying robotic missions
to the lunar surface.

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

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This will enable the development
of infrastructure

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and utilization of resources.

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While estimates vary, scientists think

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there could be up to a billion metric tons
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
perhaps hundreds of thousands of people

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living and working on the Moon.

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So although official plans
are always evolving,

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

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

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However, the Moon is roughly
the size of the continent of Africa,

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and we're starting to see
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
coordinating access to scarce resources,

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and there are also legitimate questions
about going to the Moon:

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colonialism, cultural heritage,

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and reproducing the systemic inequalities
of today's capitalism.

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And more to the point,

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don't we have enough
big challenges here on Earth?

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Internet governance, pandemics, terrorism,

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and, perhaps most importantly,
climate crisis and biodiversity loss.

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In some senses,

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the idea of the Moon as just a destination

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embodies these problematic qualities.

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It conjures a frontier attitude

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of conquest,

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big rockets and expensive projects,

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competition and winning.

NOTE Paragraph

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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
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

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our democratic institutions

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and the rule of law

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to respond to a new era
of planetary-scale challenges.

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

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for solving some of our biggest
challenges here on Earth.

NOTE Paragraph

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I've been kind obsessed with this topic

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since I was a teenager.

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

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

NOTE Paragraph

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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
of outer space in Vienna.

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Over two weeks, 160 young people
from over 60 countries

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were crammed into a big hotel
next to the UN building.

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We were invited to make recommendations

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to Member States

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about the role of space
in humanity's future.

NOTE Paragraph

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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
to keep living together.

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Now, living with 20 people
might sound kind of crazy,

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

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that allowed us to experiment
with these social technologies.

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We designed governance systems
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,

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and we moved from DC think tanks
to working for NASA

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to starting our own companies,

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these experiments enabled us to see

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how even small groups

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could be a petri dish

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for important societal questions
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
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
beyond territory and borders,

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meaning the Moon is actually
more of a template

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than a blank slate.

NOTE Paragraph

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Signed in 1967,

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the Outer Space Treaty

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is the defining treaty governing
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

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on which laws can be constructed.

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

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And the second is that the Moon
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
international system --

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the United Nations,

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the system of treaties
and international agreements,

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is built on the idea of state sovereignty,

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on the appropriation of land
and resources within borders

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and the autonomy to control free access

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within those borders.

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By doing away with both of these,

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we create the conditions
for what are called the commons.

NOTE Paragraph

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Based on the work

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of Nobel Prize-winning
economist Elinor Ostrom,

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global commons are those resources
that we all share,

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that require us to work together
to manage and protect

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important aspects
of our survival and wellbeing,

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like climate or the oceans.

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Commons-based approaches

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offer a greenfield for institution design

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that's only beginning to be explored

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at the global and interplanetary level.

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What do property rights look like,

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and how do we manage resources,

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when the traditional tools
of external authority

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and private property don't apply?

NOTE Paragraph

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Though we don't have all the answers,

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climate, internet governance,
authoritarianism,

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these are all deeply existential threats

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that we have failed to address
with our current ways of thinking.

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Successful paths forward
will require us to develop new tools.

NOTE Paragraph

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So how do we incorporate
commons-based logic

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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.

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As a young activist in World War II,

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Arvid Pardo was arrested
for anti-fascist organizing

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and held under death sentence
by the Gestapo.

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After the war,

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he worked his way
into the diplomatic corps,

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eventually becoming

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the first permanent representative
of Malta to the United Nations.

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Pardo saw that international law
did not have the tools

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to address management
of shared global resources,

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such as the high seas.

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

NOTE Paragraph

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In 1967, Pardo gave a famous speech
to the United Nations

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introducing the idea

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that the oceans and their resources

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were the "common heritage of mankind."

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The phrase was eventually adopted
as part of the Law of the Sea Treaty,

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probably the most sophisticated
commons management regime

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on the planet today.

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It was seen as a watershed moment,

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a constitution for the seas.

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But the language proved so controversial

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that it took over 12 years
to gain enough signatures

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for the treaty to enter into force,

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and some states still refuse to sign it.

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The objection was not so much
about sharing per se,

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but the obligation to share.

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States felt that the principle of equality

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undermined their autonomy

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and state sovereignty,

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the same autonomy and state sovereignty

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that underpins international law.

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So in many ways,

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the story of the common heritage principle

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is a tragedy,

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but it's powerful because
it makes plain the ways

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in which the current world order

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will put up antibodies and defenses

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and resist attempts at structural reform.

NOTE Paragraph

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But here's the thing:

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the outer space treaty has already
made these structural reforms.

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At the height of the Cold War,

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terrified that each
would get to the Moon first,

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the United States and the USSR

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made the Westphalian equivalent
of a deal with the devil.

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By requiring free access
and preventing territorial appropriation,

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we are required to redesign
our most basic institutions

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and perhaps in doing so

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learn something new
we can apply here on Earth.

NOTE Paragraph

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

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how we answer basic questions now

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will set precedent
for who has a seat at the table

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and what consent looks like,

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and these are questions of social technology,

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not rockets and hardware.

NOTE Paragraph

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In fact, these conversations
are starting to happen right now.

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The space community is discussing
basic shared agreements

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such as, how do we designate
lunar areas as heritage sites?

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And how do we get permission
for where to land

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when traditional external authority

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doesn't apply?

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How do we enforce requirements
for coordination

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when it's against the rules
to tell people where to go?

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And how do we manage
access to scarce resources

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such as water, minerals,

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or even the peaks of eternal light,

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craters that sit
at just the right latitude

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to receive near constant exposure
to sunlight, and therefore power?

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, some people think
that the lack of rules on the Moon

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is terrifying.

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And there are legitimately
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
in a first-come, first-served situation?

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And we might,

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if we dismiss this moment.

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But not if we're willing to be bold

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and to engage the challenge.

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As we learned in our communities
of self-governance,

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it's easier to create something new
than trying to dismantle the old.

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And where else but the Moon

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can we prototype
new institutions at global scale

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in a self-contained environment
with the exact design constraints needed

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for our biggest challenges here on Earth?

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Back in 1999,

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the United Nations taught
a group of young space geeks

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that we could think bigger,

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that we could impact nations
if we chose to.

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Today, the stage is set for the next step,

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to envision what comes after

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territory and borders.

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you.