No single body governs space. Under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, each nation answers internationally for what its government agencies and private companies do in orbit. So every satellite operator has to get a licence from one or more national authorities, and those authorities write the rules on launches, radio frequencies, orbital safety, debris and re-entry.
International bodies coordinate between countries. They cannot directly enforce anything on an operator.
The UN and the ITU
The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, set up in 1958, is the main forum for space norms. It has 104 member states and reports to the UN General Assembly. It produced the five core UN space treaties and the 2007 Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines, and it adopted guidelines on the long-term sustainability of space activities in 2019. It works by consensus, which gives its outputs weight and makes progress slow. Its guidelines are voluntary.
The International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency with 193 members, handles radio spectrum and orbital slot assignments for geostationary satellites. Almost every operator needs radio frequencies, so almost every operator goes through its filing process to avoid interference. For geostationary orbit the ITU effectively controls access to the most valuable positions. Filing and coordination can take years. Its World Radiocommunication Conference, held every three to four years, sets the global spectrum rules.
Debris and national regimes
The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, founded in 1993, brings together 13 space agencies, NASA, ESA, JAXA and Roscosmos among them. Its debris guidelines were first published in 2002 and revised most recently in 2025. They underpin both the UN guidelines and the ISO 24113 standard.
The United States has the most tangled system, since several agencies share jurisdiction. One commercial mission can need a licence from the FCC for communications, the FAA for launch and NOAA if it carries remote sensing payloads, plus export clearance when foreign partners are involved.
Europe splits the work between national agencies and EU institutions. France’s 2008 Space Operations Act was among the first comprehensive national space laws, with binding debris rules enforced by CNES. In Britain, the Civil Aviation Authority has licensed missions under the Outer Space Act 1986 and the Space Industry Act 2018 since July 2021, and Ofcom licenses spectrum. ESA sets debris policy for its own missions but does not regulate commercial operators. The European Commission proposed an EU Space Act in June 2025. It would apply from 2030, including to non-EU operators serving the EU market, and is still before the European Parliament and the Council.
Gaps in the system
No international body can enforce rules on space activity. The treaty makes states responsible, but not every state has the capacity or will to police its operators. ITU coordination is slow and strained by a growing pile of satellite filings. Military space activity is largely self-regulated. Commercial space has outgrown binding international rules, leaving voluntary guidelines and national law as the main safeguards.
