The 1967 Outer Space Treaty is the basic law of space: no nation can claim space or the Moon, no nuclear weapons in orbit, and states answer for their space activities.
The Outer Space Treaty was agreed at the United Nations General Assembly in December 1966. It opened for signature in London, Moscow and Washington on 27 January 1967 and came into force on 10 October 1967. It was largely based on a declaration of legal principles for space that the General Assembly had adopted in 1963.
By 1 January 2025, 116 states had ratified it and 23 more had signed it. India is one of the states that has ratified it.
Article VI is the reason private rockets need a government licence. It says private activity in space needs authorisation and continuing supervision by the state. In India that job falls to IN-SPACe, which the Space Policy 2023 makes the single window for authorising launches and satellites.
Worked example: Skyroot's Vikram-I is a private rocket, but when it lifted off from Sriharikota in July 2026, India carried international responsibility for it. IN-SPACe ran the technical reviews and gave the launch clearance before it flew.
Article II matters for the future. The Space Policy 2023 lets Indian companies own resources they mine from asteroids, but only in line with India's international obligations, which include this treaty.
Vikram-1 was built by a private company, yet under Article VI of the treaty India answers for it; note that it launched from ISRO's Sriharikota spaceport. See Vikram-1, India's first private orbital rocket
The five UN space treaties. The UN's status report as at 1 January 2025 lists ratifications for each:
India appears as a ratifying state for the first four and as a signatory only for the Moon Agreement.
Responsibility versus liability. Article VI makes a state responsible for making sure its national activities follow the treaty. Article VII makes it liable to pay for damage. A launching state is liable if it launches an object, procures a launch, or lets an object be launched from its territory or facility. So a single launch can have several liable states. The 1972 Liability Convention spells out how claims work.
The ownership question. Article II bans national claims to space by any means. Whether mining a resource counts as appropriation is still debated. India's policy approach is to allow ownership of recovered resources only 'in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of India'.
On 10 October 1967.
Article VI. It makes states responsible for national activities in space by government or non-government entities, and requires authorisation and continuing supervision.
No. Article II says outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, use, occupation or any other means.