Crosspost: The case for a Cosmic Endowment Fund

January 15, 2025 · 24 min read

This is a crosspost from the blog Machinocene - written by our Senior Tech Policy Specialist, Kevin Kohler, who writes a weekly deep dive on how to prepare for a future with artificial general intelligence. You can find the original post here.

More than 99.99% of our Universe’s natural resources, from the deep seabed, the Moon, asteroids, and beyond, are the common heritage of mankind. I don’t mean this in a poetic sense. I mean this in a legal sense. No country has sovereignty over these resources. Based on the Outer Space Treaty (1967) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) they belong to all of us.

However, these frameworks were written before the exploitation of these resources became economically viable. Now, there are the first requests for commercial international seabed mining and we are in the early stages of a new space race for natural resources. Hence, we need to operationalize the high-level principles of these treaties in a way that allows the commercial exploitation of resources whilst also establishing a benefit sharing mechanism.

For international seabed mining The International Seabed Authority is in the process of establishing a Common Heritage Fund funded by commercial licenses and royalties. In contrast, for outer space there has only been progress on commercialization without progress on benefit sharing. A Cosmic Endowment Fund that receives royalties for the exploitation of space resources, reinvests them into a broad asset portfolio, and returns dividends to the United Nations, states, or individuals would be required to fulfill this function.

The general case for creating a Cosmic Endowment Fund looks like this:

Space resources belong to all of us: Space resources are the province of all mankind and shall be used for the benefit of all countries.
Natural resources are no ordinary economic goods: As much as oil companies might claim that their profits stem from superior technology or logistical know-how, the majority of their product’s value is not created but derived from the inherent value of the extracted resource itself.
Mineral royalties are the norm worldwide: On a national level, resource extraction is accompanied by legal frameworks and social contracts that ensure some level of benefit sharing, grounded in principles of solidarity and long-term stewardship.
International coordination on mining creates legal certainty: Rather than having overlapping and conflicting claims, there should be a shared ground truth for property rights. This reduces the risk for military conflicts and makes it easier for businesses to prosper - similar to the global domain name system in cyberspace.
We know how to share the benefits of resource rents with individuals: As highlighted by the Alaska Permanent Fund created by the Republican governor Jay Hammond in the U.S. state of Alaska, resource rents can be shared in a market-friendly and even libertarian way.
We know how to share the benefits of non-renewable resources across generations: Hartwick’s rule allows us to financially transform non-renewable resources into renewable resources. Both Alaska and Norway apply this.

Additionally, the prospect of an economy with billions of AGIs increases the urgency and long-term importance of a Cosmic Endowment Fund:

AGI will accelerate resource exploitation timelines. Scientific acceleration could lead to increased technological accessibility of resources in remote locations. Further, even if material efficiency increases it seems likely that explosive economic growth would accelerate the absolute demand for material resources. The Metaculus predictions that it will take until 2070 for space mining to be profitable / until 2080 until 1% of gross world product is produced in outer space seem at odds with the prediction that we will have fairly strong versions of AGI by 2032.
We need to find mechanisms for capital income for a large share of humanity. We may eventually run out of new jobs and the labour share of income may fall significantly. A Cosmic Endowment Fund could plausibly provide income to all of humanity for many generations.

That’s the theory, but is there any possibility of such a fund in practice? Yes! After all, outer space is a legal relative of the international seabed for which the creation of a similar fund is becoming reality. Join me on a little journey on international law and resource governance at whose end we will find a working group in Vienna which could plausibly lead to the establishment of such a fund in the coming years. However, only if there are enough actors actively pushing for it.

1. Almost all natural resources are the Common Heritage of Mankind

The principle of the common heritage of mankind was established in 1967. The principle includes the following characteristics:

Non-appropriation: Ownership of regions cannot be claimed by any nation or private entity. This principle aims to avoid territorial disputes and to guarantee equal access and use.
Common management: States collectively manage the resources of these common areas through an international authority.
Benefit sharing: Resources extracted from common heritage regions must benefit everyone, not just private or national interests.
Peaceful purposes: Only peaceful activities are permitted in common heritage regions, prohibiting the stationing of military forces or weapons.
Preservation for future generations: Regions must be protected so that they remain viable for the benefit of future generations.

The common heritage of mankind has been applied to three main domains of international resource governance. First, it has been applied to the oceans and embedded explicitly in UNCLOS. Second, the principle has been established in outer space governance, albeit in a slightly weaker form. Third, it has been discussed extensively in relation to Antarctica. However, for now, the discussion is - pun intended - frozen, due to an environmental moratorium on resource exploitation.1 So, we will focus on the first two.

A third of the Earth is international seabed

The international seabed also known as “the area of the seabed and ocean floor and the subsoil thereof, beyond the limits of national jurisdiction” or simply “the Area” constitutes roughly 35% of Earth’s total surface.2

Adapted from Heinrich Böll Foundation / University of Kiel’s Future Ocean Cluster of Excellence (2017). Ocean Atlas. boell.de CC 4.0

In 1967 Arvid Pardo, the Permanent Representative of Malta to the UN, championed a campaign to give these 35% of Earth to humanity. Successfully. In 1982 the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Art. 136 explicitly declares “The Area and its resources are the common heritage of mankind.” The international seabed has an Immense potential resource value from mining of rare minerals, estimated in the trillions over the long term. Accordingly, UNCLOS also established the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an intergovernmental body to authorize seabed exploration and mining and collect and distribute the seabed mining royalties. As of 2024, 169 sovereign states have ratified UNCLOS. The only major country that has not joined UNCLOS is the United States.

Outer space contains nearly all resources

The Outer Space Treaty (1967) which has 115 state parties, including all major nations, establishes in Article 1 that “the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind.” This formulation is the predecessor to the broader common heritage of mankind principle.3 The treaty includes the principles of non-appropriation, benefit sharing, and peaceful purposes. It does not include the principles of common management and preservation for future generations.

The treaty covers all of outer space and establishes that there is no recognized sovereignty outside of Earth. Comparing Earth’s mass to that of non-sovereign areas we find that “the province of all mankind” includes about:

99.9997% of the Solar System
99.99999999999999999% of the Milky Way
99.99999999999999999999999999% of the Observable Universe

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, contains more than 100 billion planetary systems, and, in turn, the observable universe contains more than a trillion galaxies. Even if we just focus on space resources that are accessible for exploitation in the foreseeable future, there is immense value. For starters, there are many asteroids with metals that would be worth trillions at today’s market prices. An example of a metallic near-Earth asteroid would be (6178) 1986 DA. It has lots of Iron and nickel as well as 100’000 tons of platinum and 10’000 tons of gold. An example from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter would be 16 Psyche. Its metals have an estimated value of $10’000 quadrillion.

The Moon Treaty (1979) goes further than the Outer Space Treaty. It explicitly states “The moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind” and, amongst other things, aims to establish a common management regime with an emphasis on equitable benefit sharing. However, the scope of the Moon treaty is geographically limited to the Moon and it only has 17 parties.

2. We are on the cusp of large-scale exploitation of common heritage resources

For the first 55+ years of its existence, the principle of the common heritage of mankind was largely of symbolic nature. Seabed and space resources could not be exploited profitably given the level of technology and market prices. This is changing, and with AGI it might change rapidly.

Mining deep below the sea

While no large-scale seabed mining currently takes place in areas beyond national jurisdiction, we are on the precipice. As of December 2024, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) has issued 31 exploration contracts to 22 public and private mining enterprises. 17 of these are for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean. This zone is estimated to contain more copper, cobalt, nickel, and manganese than all known land deposits combined. Additionally, the US has unilaterally issued two separate exploratory licenses in the zone to Lockheed Martin.

*Source: Congressional Research Service. (2024). Seabed Mining in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: Issues for Congress. crsreports.congress.gov.*

Exploration contracts only allow for tests to confirm the suitability of these locations for commercial mining. They do not allow large-scale commercial mining. This requires an exploitation contract.

In 2021, Nauru became the first state to notify the ISA of its sponsorship of Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (a subsidiary of The Metals Company, a Canadian firm) for an exploitation license. Since then the ISA has been working on a review of the environmental impacts of deep seabed mining, which is due in 2025. The Metals Company will officially submit for the exploitation license in 2025 with the intention to mine by early 2026.

The Second Space Race

The first space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was a competition about nuclear missiles and prestige. The second space race between the United States and China will be about securing space resources. For example, Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright, former vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, argues that outer space is “transitioning from a medium and domain of discovery to one of commerce”.

The concept of space mining may still sound like science fiction, but early space mining experiments will be happening as part of the United States’ Artemis program and the Chinese-Russian International Lunar Research Station.

With the Artemis program, the US has decided to return to the Moon and to establish a permanent base camp near the Moon’s south pole. NASA’s current goal is to return boots on the surface of the Moon with Artemis III by September 2026.4

In 2025 the Chinese and Russian space agencies are set to pick a site for the Moon base. The Chinese Tianwen-2 will launch and seek out asteroid samples. In 2026 the construction for the International Lunar Research Station is set to begin.

That is not by accident, because the Moon is the gateway for space industrialization. The gravity well of the Moon is about six times smaller than that of Earth, meaning it is much cheaper in terms of propellant costs to leave the Moon than it is to leave Earth. The cost to bring supplies from Earth to the Moon is more than $10’000/kg. So, any resource procured locally saves a lot in transportation costs. This includes the refueling of rockets from Earth with fuel mined on the Moon. In the foreseeable future this would be the Moon’s water ice (H2O) which can be purified, and converted into liquid hydrogen (H2) and liquid oxygen (O2) propellants.5

In the long-run, this may include nuclear fusion powered by Helium-3, which is abundant on the Moon.6 So, the Moon may serve as a future “gas station” in space that enables missions that go further to Mars and asteroids.

*Source: Luxembourg Space Agency. (2018). Opportunities for Space Resources Utilization. space-agency.public.lu*

3. The Outer Space Treaty needs to be operationalized for a commercial reality

As large-scale resource exploitation becomes feasible, the high-level principles of UNCLOS and the Outer Space Treaty need to be operationalized. For the international seabed, this operationalization to a market-driven logic with benefit sharing has already advanced significantly. For outer space, we have made some progress on property rights, but we still lack any operational mechanism for benefit sharing.

Non-appropriation: This principle should restrict contested claims, weapons deployments, and wars over territorial sovereignty, and protect the freedom to explore, transport, and trade. It should not restrict the ability to legally acquire property rights and commercial licenses. Without these there is no legal certainty for the private sector, which makes it more challenging to find investors, insurance providers, and permission to launch from states. Similarly, legal property rights and licenses are required to make resources a transferable asset that can be traded in markets.

Benefit sharing: We must ensure that this principle is upheld - not simply in name, but through a robust benefit sharing mechanism. Such a mechanism could take inspiration from the mineral leasing and royalty systems that exist for natural resources within national borders. For outer space the decision-making power on factors such as environmental review could stay at the national level. Still, international revenues could be invested into a permanent fund for long-term sustainability like in Alaska or Norway. The goal should be to give humanity a fair compensation for commercial rights to extract the inherent value of naturally existing resources that are outside of national appropriation.

Operationalization of seabed mining

The first step in operationalizing UNCLOS was its amendment. The original mandate foresaw that the ISA would be itself active as a producer in seabed mineral exploitation through an entity called “The Enterprise”. Developed countries objected and with a 1994 Agreement the ISA became closer to a modern resource regulator, leaving the exploitation to private and state-owned enterprises.

More recently, as commercial seabed mining has become a real prospect, the ISA has been working on establishing operational procedures. Its environmental review for the exploitation license application by Nauru and the Metals Company is due in 2025. Because the seabed contains living organisms, this is much more important for seabed mining than for outer space. The ISA has also been working to define what kind of fees and royalties have to be paid by companies for exploiting seabed resources. It tries to structure them in a way that limits the upfront costs for private enterprises, a principle that could also be useful for outer space.

Proposal for a hybrid ad valorem royalty and fixed-fee payment system. Source: Van Nijen et al. (2019). The Development of a Payment Regime for Deep Sea Mining Activities in the Area through Stakeholder Participation. The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, 34, 4.

Lastly, the ISA has considered two main ways of operationalizing financial benefit sharing: By distributing financial benefits to member states and/or by funding global public goods, investment in human and physical capital or deep-sea research. In July 2023 it decided to establish a first fund referred to as either Seabed Sustainability Fund or Common Heritage Fund focused on funding global public goods. While it’s still too early to judge the exact fund set-up, the ISA is considering eventually turning this into a sovereign wealth fund of a Norwegian model, which could be a good model for outer space.

Operationalization of space mining

Moon Treaty (1979)

The Moon Treaty was a follow-up to the Outer Space Treaty that was meant to address the issue of space resources. It explicitly calls for an international regime that guarantees the equitable sharing of the benefits from space resources amongst all states that are members of the treaty, with special consideration for those states contributing the most to space exploration as well as those with the highest development needs.7

However, the Moon Treaty only has 17 parties. Most major nations, including the United States, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom rejected this formulation as too strong. Accordingly, the US has explicitly stressed in the 2020 Executive Order on Space Resources that it objects to any potential interpretation of the Moon Treaty as customary international law that would be binding on non-signatories.

Artemis Accords (2020)

Starting with the 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act the US has created a legal regime that would allow for the private exploitation of space resources: ‘‘A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States.’’

Subsequently, Luxembourg and the UAE have passed similar laws, and the US has worked to internationalize its approach in time for the Artemis program launched in 2017. The result of this are the Artemis Accords (2020), which can be viewed as the US interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty.8 The Artemis Accords have been signed by 51 countries, but notably do not include China and Russia.

The Artemis Accords explicitly affirm that extraction of space resources is not the same as national appropriation. Private enterprises should have legal certainty that space resource exploitation is legal. The challenge with the US domestic legal framework and the Artemis Accords is that they don’t yet contain any mechanism for benefit sharing. Nevertheless, the Artemis Accords reaffirm the commitment to exploit space resources in compliance with the Outer Space Treaty and further commit “to multilateral efforts to further develop international practices and rules applicable to the extraction and utilization of space resources, including through ongoing efforts at the COPUOS.”

COPUOS Working Group on Legal Aspects of Space Resource Activities (2022-2027)

This working group of the legal subcommittee of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in Vienna aims to highlight gaps and establish high-level principles for space resource governance by 2027. In September 2024 the UN Pact for the Future by the UN General Assembly reaffirmed the importance of discussing the establishment of new frameworks for space resources through COPUOS.

While the COPUOS working group provides one avenue to move forward in operationalizing the benefit sharing aspect of the Outer Space Treaty, it is far from a certainty that it will. A pure “finders-keepers” regime for space resources might grant a short-term advantage to a few actors. These actors are not in a hurry to establish a benefit sharing framework.

As a reference point, The Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group produced building blocks that re-emphasize that the “use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and humankind” and that highlight the option of “the establishment of an international fund”. However, this is immediately followed by “the international framework should not require compulsory monetary benefit sharing.”

Beware of false dichotomies

The choice between shared space stewardship with 100% benefit sharing and unrestricted space exploitation with 0% benefit sharing is a false dichotomy. There is a lot of room for a balanced framework for the exploitation of outer space which encourages private enterprise while also accruing benefits to all of humanity in a more tangible way than through vague platitudes. Indeed, natural resource governance in every country is somewhere between those two extremes.

It may be unrealistic to demand that global resource extraction mirror the generous benefit sharing formulas seen in some national contexts, where 50%+ of profits go to the community. However, one would hope that the global level of solidarity is not literally 0% either. Even the difference between 0.1% and 0% could be gigantic in the long run.9 Large-scale extraction of space resources will go on for hundreds of thousands of years. From as early as a few decades to the rest of time it seems plausible that AI-owned organizations rather than human-owned organizations could conduct the vast majority of space resource extraction. If we cannot establish the principle of a non-zero level of solidarity amongst ourselves, how can we expect future superintelligent AI systems to share with us?

If we set the precedent that the ability to exploit space resources equates to exclusive ownership, and that wealth from natural resources need not be shared to any degree, then we risk establishing a system that erodes human wealth and human agency in the long run.

Thanks to Andrew Miller (who also authored this nice report on space futures), Julius, Jeff Fong & Emma McAleavy for valuable feedback on a draft of this essay. All opinions and mistakes are mine.

1 Seven currently existing sovereign states (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom) have made territorial claims in Antarctica. Historical claims also include the Spanish Empire and Nazi Germany. The territorial claims are not internationally recognized, partially overlapping, and there are more potential claims. The Antarctic Treaty (1959) signed by 58 countries does not renunciate the claims but it freezes them.

By the mid-1970s, interest in Antarctica’s mineral potential was growing and in the 1980s both the Antarctic Treaty consultative parties as well as the UN General Assembly formally placed the question of the resources of Antarctica on their agendas. For example, in the UN, Azraai Zain, the Permanent Representative of Malaysia, championed the idea that “the fruits of any exploitation of Antarctica’s resources should be equitably shared by mankind.”

The Antarctic Treaty states tried to negotiate a treaty to address resource extraction but they couldn’t agree. In the end, they decided to prohibit all commercial exploitation of natural resources in Antarctica for environmental protection under the Madrid Protocol (1991). Hence, the question of resource exploitation and Antarctica’s status as a common heritage of mankind has largely subsided for now.

*2 The Area includes the seabed outside of not only territorial waters but also exclusive economic zones, which extend 200 nautical miles (≈370 kilometers) off the nearest coast. In areas with an extended continental shelf, the Area may only start as far as 350 nautical miles (≈650 kilometers) off the nearest coast. ISA says the Area covers about 50% of the Ocean floor, which itself covers about 71% of the Earth’s surface. 50%71%≈35%.

3 It is striking that the Outer Space Treaty repeatedly refers to “mankind” rather than “all states”. In other words, this arguably includes humans that are not citizens of UN recognized states, and there could be some theoretical ground to share future benefits directly with individuals. Aldo Armando Cocca, Permanent Representative of Argentina to the UN, has argued that this has created humanity as a new subject of international law.

4 These will be the first humans on the Moon since the last Apollo Mission in 1972, more than 50 years ago (!)

5 The melting and electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen requires energy. In part for this, NASA plans to operate flying solar panels and nuclear fission power plants. The reason for this transformation is that liquid hydrogen and oxygen are much more suitable to create the high thrust and specific impulse required for rocket fuel than solar or nuclear fission.

6 Accordingly, Chinese state TV has called the Moon “the Persian Gulf of the solar system”.

7 Article 11 of the Moon Treaty [emphasis added]:

“1. The moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind, which finds its expression in the provisions of this Agreement and in particular in paragraph 5 of this article. (…)

5. States Parties to this Agreement hereby undertake to establish an international regime, including appropriate procedures, to govern the exploitation of the natural resources of the moon as such exploitation is about to become feasible. This provision shall be implemented in accordance with article 18 of this Agreement. (…)

7. The main purposes of the international regime to be established shall include:

(a) The orderly and safe development of the natural resources of the moon;

(b) The rational management of those resources;

(c) The expansion of opportunities in the use of those resources;

(d) An equitable sharing by all States Parties in the benefits derived from those resources, whereby the interests and needs of the developing countries, as well as the efforts of those countries which have contributed either directly or indirectly to the exploration of the moon, shall be given special consideration.

8. All the activities with respect to the natural resources of the moon shall be carried out in a manner compatible with the purposes specified in paragraph 7 of this article”

8 Section 10 of the Artemis Accords [emphasis added]

The Signatories note that the utilization of space resources can benefit humankind by providing critical support for safe and sustainable operations.
The Signatories emphasize that the extraction and utilization of space resources, including any recovery from the surface or subsurface of the Moon, Mars, comets, or asteroids, should be executed in a manner that complies with the Outer Space Treaty and in support of safe and sustainable space activities. The Signatories affirm that the extraction of space resources does not inherently constitute national appropriation under Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, and that contracts and other legal instruments relating to space resources should be consistent with that Treaty.
The Signatories commit to informing the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well as the public and the international scientific community of their space resource extraction activities in accordance with the Outer Space Treaty.
The Signatories intend to use their experience under the Accords to contribute to multilateral efforts to further develop international practices and rules applicable to the extraction and utilization of space resources, including through ongoing efforts at the COPUOS.”

9 This somewhat echoes the logic of Bostrom et al.’s insistence that whoever gets extremely rich from AI should not literally donate 0%. “for an extremely rich state it could be crucially important that it gives 0.1% rather than 0%. In a really extreme case, it might not matter so much whether a super-rich state gives 0.1% or 1% or 10%: the key thing is to ensure that it does not give 0%.” Nick Bostrom, Allan Daffoe, & Carrick Flynn. (2020). Public Policy and Superintelligent AI: A Vector Field Approach. In: Liao, S. M. (ed.): Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Oxford University Press.

*10 I agree with Jonas Vollmer that there is a need for thinking about space resource governance in a differentiated way. The two main reasons why solar system vs. interstellar should have a different logic:*

Solar system colonization vs. interstellar settlements: The solar system’s economy will remain Earth-centric for a long time. Even if space resources will be used outside of Earth, almost all of it will be instrumental to bringing other, more valuable resources from the periphery back to Earth. This extractive logic means that it is logistically feasible to charge royalties on extracted resources (“pay-as-you-mine”), as they enter Earth. If we look beyond the Solar System that logic makes much less sense. If space probes would go out to settle new star systems, you could only charge upfront, lump-sum fees. However, it would be impossible for anyone on Earth to pay anything close to the fair value of entire star systems or galaxies upfront.

Resources vs. sentient beings: Within the solar system we are looking at the extraction of abiotic resources. If we look at the settlement of new star systems we are looking at the potential creation of trillions of sentient beings. I don’t think we should just sell trillions of sentient beings to the highest bidder.