And he doesn't much care what the United Nations has to say about it. Therefore I believe it just needs to be made to the public in general. Benson is the founder and CEO of SpaceDev, a Colorado-based company that is planning the first commercial mission beyond Earth orbit. He emphasizes that SpaceDev will not be accepting any government subsidies, since these might weaken the firm's assertion of asteroid ownership. Benson is right to be wary of the United Nations.
International law regarding space property rights is murky at best, downright hostile at worst.
In particular, there are two international agreements, written under U.N. auspices, that are relevant to the question of owning territory or resources on celestial bodies such as the moon, the asteroids, and the planets. These are the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and the Moon Treaty of 1979. The Outer Space Treaty, which has been ratified by over 50 nations, including the United States, prohibits any claim of national sovereignty on an extraterrestrial body. The treaty makes no mention of private property, but it undercuts the ability of any government to recognize or enforce a private claim. The Moon Treaty, too, reflects the international political climate of its era, in this case the 1970s emphasis on wealth transfer from the West to the Third World.