The McGill Global Space Governance study describes the term global space governance, in brief, as the entirety of the agreements, laws, regulations, and other mechanisms in relation to outer space affairs or activities, including processes for their formation, compliance monitoring, and or enforcement by concerned international and or national institutions.

However, there is a tension in the literature on global governance between the view that States remain firmly at the helm of global politics and those who argue that other non-state actors are increasingly important for carrying out basic governing functions, as States are losing power.

The increasing complexity of global governance arrangements demonstrates that authority is “polycentric”, diffusing across multiple venues and through a variety of actors. As argued by Jessica F. Green, the loci of authority are at once expanding and increasingly overlapping.

However, as developing states have entered the global competition alongside private corporations, the argument stands that the privatization of the space race invites a new competitive dynamic between states and corporations with relative parity, rather than classic intrastate competition.

From a developing country perspective, in this period of expansion and overlap, it is possibly worrisome that International law has, at this stage, no overarching norms governing participation by

non-state actors in international organizations. Particularly as, theoretically, vast participatory rights are possible for non-state actors, including voting, membership in decision-making organs,

and budgetary contributions. This may not seem like a problem now, but could be as non-state actor power increases and the forums for engagement diversify.

On a positive note, Interactional Law presupposes the participation of all relevant actors in the construction and reconstruction of norms and rules and it is proposed that it is only through this involvement that actors learn to apply rules against the background of shared understandings and reinforce their commitments.