The debate on whether to perceive the outer space and celestial bodies as either province of all humankind or Common Heritage of Mankind (CHM), among academic circles, has been carried out since the failure of the Moon Agreement of 1979. Recently, it has gained more attention after the United States adopted its own asteroid mining law, while Luxemburg is developing its own set of regulations. As other countries and agencies study the idea of actually extracting precious resources from the Moon and near Earth asteroids, the “Phantom of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS)” appears again, playing his CHM tune.
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