section_path: Human access/Legal status
section_name: Legal status
paragraph_text: Legal status
  
  The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework for international space law. It covers the legal use of outer space by nation states, and includes in its definition of outer space, the Moon, and other celestial bodies. The treaty states that outer space is free for all nation states to explore and is not subject to claims of national sovereignty, calling outer space the "province of all mankind". This status as a common heritage of mankind has been used, though not without opposition, to enforce the right to access and shared use of outer space for all nations equally, particularly non-spacefaring nations. It prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons in outer space. The treaty was passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1963 and signed in 1967 by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the United States of America (USA), and the United Kingdom (UK). As of 2017, 105 state parties have either ratified or acceded to the treaty. An additional 25 states signed the treaty, without ratifying it.
  
  Since 1958, outer space has been the subject of multiple United Nations resolutions. Of these, more than 50 have been concerning the international co-operation in the peaceful uses of outer space and preventing an arms race in space. Four additional space law treaties have been negotiated and drafted by the UN's Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Still, there remains no legal prohibition against deploying conventional weapons in space, and anti-satellite weapons have been successfully tested by the USA, USSR, China, and in 2019, India. The 1979 Moon Treaty turned the jurisdiction of all heavenly bodies (including the orbits around such bodies) over to the international community. The treaty has not been ratified by any nation that currently practices human spaceflight.
  
  In 1976, eight equatorial states (Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, The Republic of the Congo, Zaire, Uganda, Kenya, and Indonesia) met in Bogotá, Colombia: with their "Declaration of the First Meeting of Equatorial Countries", or the Bogotá Declaration, they claimed control of the segment of the geosynchronous orbital path corresponding to each country. These claims are not internationally accepted.
  
  An increasing issue of international space law and regulation has been the dangers of the growing number of space debris.