The Moon Agreement and the Artemis Accords: Is Latin America at a Crossroads?

In the last few decades, the prospect of a resource exploitation enterprise in outer space started to slowly become economically appealing and technologically feasible. Driven mainly by the interest of private actors, some states have begun regulating the exploitation of space resources domestically, despite the strong interest of the international community in the activities conducted in outer space. In 2020, the United States launched the Artemis Accords, allowing for the coordination of outer space resource exploitation. Although the Artemis Accords are intended to fully comply with the Outer Space Treaty, some signatory states are already parties to the Moon Agreement, which specifically focuses on space resource exploitation. Mexico is a particularly interesting case since it is a state party to the Moon Agreement and has also signed the Artemis Accords, while Colombia and Brazil have only signed the latter at the time of writing. This article will analyse both instruments to see if they are legally compatible in relation to commercial exploitation of natural resources to conclude that, despite their different spirits, in effect they may be compatible with each other.