Application of Ostrom’s Principles for Sustainable Governance of Common‐Pool Resources to Near‐Earth Orbit
| Author | Brian Weeden,Joan Johnson‐Freese |
| Published date | 01 February 2012 |
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00109.x |
Application of Ostrom’s Principles
for Sustainable Governance of
Common-Pool Resources to
Near-Earth Orbit
Joan Johnson-Freese
Naval War College, USA
Brian Weeden
Secure World Foundation, USA
Abstract
Near-Earth orbit is a key global resource, hosting assets critical to governments, militaries and commercial entities and
providing services for global communications, remote sensing, national and international security, and accurate
positioning and timing. It is also an increasingly crowded, congested and contested environment, at risk from both
intentional and unintentional activities and events, and threats natural and human-made. Ensuring the long-term
sustainability of the space environment is an increasingly recognized need by all users of space. This article considers
the viability of principles regarding sustainable common-pool resources (CPRs) established by Elinor Ostrom for space
governance. In this initial consideration, we focus specifically on the issues of boundaries, collective choice
arrangements and monitoring. Within those contexts, Ostrom’s principles appear most useful for identifying gaps in
the current space governance system and mechanisms. Further, while Ostrom provides multiple success stories for her
model, they typically include common-pool regimes functioning at a local level, with success stories on a larger scale
elusive. Near-Earth orbit is perhaps the largest-scale CPR to consider. Consequently, not only is additional work
needed to relate Ostrom’s model specifically to space, but to determine the limits of applicability of Ostrom’s model
and other models that should be considered.
Policy Implications
•The global commons of outer space, particularly the region where satellites orbit around the Earth, faces a collective
action problem of how to ensure the long-term sustainability of space activities.
•The current governance mechanisms for outer space activities were largely developed during the cold war, and are
not sufficient to deal with the collective action problems stemming from the growing number of space actors and
users.
•Space actors exist with varying levels of capabilities, which complicates defining resource appropriator rights and
responsibilities.
•Common agreement is needed among space actors on the bounds of the space domain to allow resource appropri-
ators to set the governance limitations, who has the right to make use of it and what governance regime applies.
•Existing institutions for debating, creating and modifying space governance regimes fall short of the requirement
that most actors affected by the rules can participate in their creation.
•Space situational awareness will play a crucial role in monitoring the status of the space commons, adherence to
rules and norms, and creating transparency and confidence among space actors.
In her book Governing the Commons, 2009 Nobel Prize-
winner for Economics, Elinor Ostrom, issues a ‘challenge
to scholarship in the social sciences’ (Ostrom, 1998,
p. 214). After contesting the conventional models which
say those using a commons, or more accurately
common-pool resources (CPRs), will not cooperate on
their own to achieve collective benefits, Ostrom presents
a framework for governing CPRs without the need to
resort to centralized regulatory authority or complete
privatization, the two choices offered in the famed
Global Policy Volume 3 . Issue 1 . February 2012
ª2012 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Policy (2012) 3:1 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00109.x
Special Section: Research Article
72
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