Resolved: The Republic of India should sign the Artemis Accords.

What the Accords are

Rounds reward teams who know the document. The Artemis Accords are non-binding principles for lunar exploration: transparency, interoperability, emergency assistance, heritage protection, and the contested pieces, "safety zones" around operations and support for extracting space resources. Pro frames signing as cheap and valuable for India, bringing Artemis-program cooperation, technology pathways, and a seat at the table while the rules of the lunar economy are still being written. Con frames it as picking a side in space governance, endorsing a U.S.-authored reading of space law that rivals reject, at the cost of the strategic autonomy India values.

The autonomy tradition

The agent matters a great deal. India’s foreign-policy identity is non-alignment updated into multi-alignment: cooperate with everyone, ally with no one. Con argues the Accords quietly break that tradition by tying India’s space future to an American framework just as its own program (low-budget lunar landings, a growing launch industry) gives it independent leverage. Pro’s counter is that the Accords aren’t an alliance, since signatories include rivals and neutral states, and that multi-alignment means signing this while cooperating with others, the same flexibility India uses elsewhere.

Resource rules and the commons

The deepest clash is legal and philosophical. The Outer Space Treaty bars national appropriation of celestial bodies, and the Accords assert that extracting resources isn’t appropriation. Con calls this enclosure of the commons dressed up as principle, with first movers writing rules that lock in their head start and "safety zones" working as territory in all but name. Pro responds that some rulebook is coming as lunar activity becomes real, and the choice is between a transparent framework India helps shape and a lawless race decided by power. For India in particular, being inside beats being outside.