2026 Australian Arbitration Week Recap: Arbitration Beyond Borders: Resolving Disputes in the New Space Economy

Space is no longer the “final” frontier. It is now woven into the fabric of everyday life, with communications, navigation, weather forecasting, environmental reporting, emergency response and defence all relying on space-based technologies.

Nor is Australia’s space sector merely prospective. Currently worth AUD 8 billion a year, the industry is growing rapidly. In January 2026, Gilmour Space Technologies announced that it had secured AUD 217 million in a Series E round jointly led by the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (“NRFC”) and Hostplus. In June 2026, Southern Launch, which facilitated the world’s first commercial spacecraft re-entry, announced the close of an AUD 25 million Series A round, including an AUD 10 million investment from the NRFC. In September 2026, space intelligence company HEO raised AUD 37 million in Series B funding, in a round led by defence technology investor Beaten Zone Venture Partners, which also included an AUD 10 million investment from the NRFC.

In light of this rapid commercialisation of space, an esteemed panel convened on 15 October 2026 during Australian Arbitration Week to challenge assumptions about what a “space law dispute” might encompass, and to discuss the current state of space law, the future of space law disputes and the role of arbitration in resolving them. Hosted by Corrs Chambers Westgarth, the panel was moderated by Marco Paoletti (Senior Associate, Corrs Chambers Westgarth), and the panellists were:

• Ana Stanič (Director and Founder, E&A Law);
• Jo Feldman (Partner and Head of Trade Law, Corrs Chambers Westgarth);
• Frances Wheelahan (Partner, Corrs Chambers Westgarth); and
• Nathaniel Popelianski (Partner and Head of Real Estate, Corrs Chambers Westgarth).

International Law Frameworks Governing Space – Fit for Purpose?

Opening the discussion, Ms Stanič emphasised that the treaty framework governing space was drafted at the height of the Cold War, when access to space was technologically demanding and prohibitively expensive. The treaties therefore prioritise peace and adopt a State-centred design, in which private actors are viewed only through the prism of State responsibility.

The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (1967) (“Outer Space Treaty”), for example, contains no dispute resolution mechanism, but includes the following provisions (emphasis added):

• “The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries […] and shall be the province of all mankind” (Article I);
• “Outer space […] is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation” (Article II);
• “States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit […] any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” (Article IV); and
• “States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies” (Article VI).

Ms Stanič noted that the rest of the framework – the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1968), the Convention on the International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (1972), the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1974) and the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (1979) – shares the same State-centred design.

She then considered this framework against today’s “mega-constellation era”, in which space activity is driven by commercial companies launching coordinated groups of low Earth orbit satellites. The US-established Artemis Accords (“Accords”), now signed by 76 States, illustrates an evolving understanding of the rights and obligations in space. On the one hand, the Accords explicitly affirms the Outer Space Treaty; on the other, their statement that “the extraction of space resources does not inherently constitute national appropriation under Article II of the Outer Space Treaty” sits uneasily with the overarching purposes of the treaty framework.

What Are “Space Law” Disputes?

Given this tension between the rapid commercialisation of space and a treaty framework that has not kept pace, Ms Feldman challenged the audience to think more critically about what might constitute a “space law” dispute, and about the causes of and the difficulties attached to such disputes.

Ms Feldman observed that a wide array of disputes could be characterised as “space law” disputes, including those arising from supply chain disruptions and contractual disagreements. However, she identified space collisions, and the resulting proliferation of space debris, as a source of disputes likely to arise with increasing frequency. The potential for falling debris to cause significant and unpredictable harm is readily apparent, and the risk to Australia should not be understated: space debris has already fallen in, for example, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales.

Noting that the space treaty framework lacks the comprehensiveness of other international law regimes such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), Ms Feldman suggested that the State-based space treaties were simply not “fully formed for the task lying ahead of them”. State-to-State methods of dispute resolution, including diplomatic channels, would likely prove less effective in the current geopolitical landscape and are in any event rarely suitable for commercial disputes. Most disputes would therefore fall to commercial arbitration and litigation, which are better placed to deal with a range of space law disputes, including disputes over loss of equipment or claims concerning the liability of space operators. Arbitration appears particularly well suited, given that many space law disputes are expected to involve confidential or sensitive matters.

Ms Feldman cautioned, however, that space law disputes would present unique difficulties. First, how would a party prove that harm had occurred? Although some incidents would be recorded (such as satellite images of the crater carved into the moon by a crashing SpaceX rocket), others would raise evidentiary difficulties. Second, could damage to the commons be litigated or arbitrated? How would one, for example, quantify the damage caused by the SpaceX rocket on the moon? The existence of harm and quantification of damage would be more apparent where a space object crashes onto someone’s land or project on Earth, but far less clear for events in space. Ms Feldman also invited the audience to consider the difficulty of assessing loss where space junk makes it harder, or impossible, for other actors to launch objects into space.

Ms Feldman further acknowledged that increasing domestic regulation of space operations, as States seek to protect their national interests in space technology, might give rise to more investor–State disputes.

Domestic Law Considerations for Australian Space Projects

The discussion then turned to the domestic regulatory regimes that form an important part of “space law”.

From an intellectual property (“IP”) and technology law perspective, Ms Wheelahan observed that the Outer Space Treaty’s requirement that the “exploration and use of outer space” be “carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries” sits in tension with a fundamental aspect of IP law: the claiming and protection of ownership over creations of the mind. She also identified an open question: if IP rights are territorial in nature, which IP laws apply on the moon, or in outer space, where no State exercises any jurisdiction? Data rights in space are similarly an emerging area without a clear framework, the only guidance being soft law in the form of the Principles Relating to Remote Sensing of the Earth from Outer Space, which were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 3 December 1986.

For Australian space projects, Ms Wheelahan noted that space technology is one of the critical infrastructure sectors covered by the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 (Cth). The regulatory burden would increase if the relevant parts of the Act were “switched on” and specific assets were to be prescribed as assets within the “space technology sector”. Further, under Australia’s export control regime, the export or supply of space technologies that have a potential secondary military use may be tightly controlled and, absent a licence, potentially prohibited. The risks and additional costs associated with these regulatory burdens would need to be addressed in commercial contracts.

Mr Popelianski described the practical real estate issues involved in securing the land-based communications infrastructure needed to support space activities, including obtaining appropriate land tenure and managing the short- and long-term risks of developing and operating that infrastructure. Different forms of tenure would suit different projects: freehold, although the most secure, is expensive, whereas leases and licences carry various risks and regulatory requirements depending on the state or territory. As licences are purely contractual and do not confer a proprietary interest, Mr Popelianski considered them appropriate, at most, for short-term installations.

Mr Popelianski also identified several risks arising from the sensitive nature of space-related infrastructure. Because space projects often have specific and critical land requirements (for example, that the land be flat, free of line-of-sight obstructions, within a radio quiet zone and in an area with clear skies), protecting those conditions over the long term would be key. He suggested that this might, for example, require a provision in the lease that expressly restricts the landowner from permitting activities that would cause disruption anywhere on that land.

Conclusion

One thread ran clearly through the panel’s contributions: in practice, the label of “space law” covers a diverse array of legal considerations. In the moderator’s closing words, “space law”, as practised today, consists of classic commercial law and dispute resolution mechanisms, overlaid by a growing body of domestic regulation driven by national security and political considerations. Space risks are now everyday commercial risks, and it is critical that lawyers familiarise themselves with the sector in order to support Australia’s space economy effectively. Given the sector’s rapid growth and the absence of a comprehensive international legal framework, we are likely to see more space-related arbitration and litigation in the years ahead.

More coverage from Australian Arbitration Week is available here.