One area where treaties like the Outer Space Treaty and the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST - wonderful acronym) can hinder development is the attitude that we're free to take the risks and spend the money necessary to accomplish something and then everyone has a claim on profits (but no liability for any losses). It's a classic, "heads I win, tails you lose" attitude that means no one is likely to invest in these efforts because there is nothing to gain from it.

Every time I read the Outer Space Treaty, it reminds me of a portion of Aaron Copeland's Lincoln Portrait that was drawn from the Lincoln-Douglas debates:

He said: "It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle." [Lincoln-Douglas debates, 15 October 1858]