UNOOSA Space Debris Mitigation Standards Compendium
UNOOSA Space Debris Mitigation Standards Compendium
UNOOSA maintains a compendium tracking national and international mechanisms for debris mitigation — a running inventory of who has adopted what, which is itself evidence of fragmentation.
Related: orbital-commons-kessler, scaled-debris-numbers
The UN COPUOS Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines, endorsed by the General Assembly in 2007, remain the primary international framework — non-binding. src
The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) published original Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines in 2007 and updated them in 2025 — still voluntary. src
ESA's internal Space Debris Mitigation Policy was most recently updated 3 February 2026 — binding only for ESA and cooperating partners. src
The compendium lists national mechanisms from over 40 countries (Algeria through Uruguay), updated as recently as January 2026 (Brazil, Cyprus, France, Türkiye, Uruguay), showing active national lawmaking but no unified regime. src
The 1968 Rescue Agreement requires returning foreign space objects found in territory — the only binding treaty touching debris, and it concerns recovery rather than prevention. src