Law Commons^™

Large Constellations Of Small Satellites: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, And The Illegal, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The most exciting and far-reaching contemporary developments regarding human activities in outer space arise from the recent drastic reductions in the costs of building, launching, and operating satellites, and from the concomitant sudden emergence of large constellations of small, inexpensive, privately-owned spacecraft. These satellites--devoted to highly remunerative functions such as communications (bringing high-speed, affordable internet to underserved constituencies), remote sensing (facilitating land use planning, weather forecasting, and emergency search and rescue), and support for military operations (in Ukraine and elsewhere)--already number in the thousands and will soon reach the tens of thousands.

But in addition to generating billions of …

The Regulation Of Space Tourism, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Space tourism has to be regulated as a subset of private spaceflight activities, whereby humans are sent to outer space in a fundamentally private context. In addition to space law, air law would be relevant for addressing private spaceflight, but neither regime has at the international level regulated relevant activities to any appreciable extent. They provide little more than a set of guiding overarching principles. Much of the onus of future regulation will fall on the shoulders of individual states, most notably the United States. In the more distant future, this may result in a special international regime, using elements …

Neutrality And Outer Space, Wolff Heintschel Von Heinegg

International Law Studies

This article discusses the law of neutrality as it pertains to belligerent operations in and through outer space as well as belligerent outer space operations involving the territory and national airspace of neutral States. As far as the latter is concerned, the traditional law of neutrality is fully applicable. Accordingly, international law prohibits belligerents from launching space objects from neutral territory or through neutral national airspace. While neutral States may not provide belligerents with outer space assets or the use of communications infrastructure located in their territories, they are not obliged to prevent their nationals from providing any of the …

Space Law And Gnss—A Look At The Legal Frameworks For “Outer Space”, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), obviously, make crucial use of satellites operating in an area commonly known as “outer space,” raising issues regarding which specific body of law might rule the operations of such satellite systems. Though the “horizontal” boundary between outer space and the underlying area of airspaces has never been authoritatively defined, it has generally been agreed that those two areas differ fundamentally as to the legal regimes ruling them, giving rise indeed to a specific body of “space law.”

An Interdisciplinary Approach To The Strategic Defense Initiative Debate, Scott F. March

Akron Law Review

An interdisciplinary framework in which international law is but one element is presented in this article in the hope of lending organization to the complex subject of space weaponization. Seven factors are discussed which strongly influence decision-makers in both the United States and the Soviet Union who are charged with establishing and implementing the military space policies of their respective nations. They are (1) the relationship between the militarization of earth and the militarization of space; (2) the effects of weapon technology and national defense policy upon the use of space; (3) the interrelationship of the international law-making process with …

The Law-Making Treaties Of The International Telecommunication Union Through Time And In Space, J. Henry Glazer

Michigan Law Review

On the twenty-fifth of June, the Government of the United States of America received an invitation to attend in Russia a conference of plenipotentiaries to consider the revision of an important multilateral convention. Since the conference involved matters which, by American municipal practice, were solely within the competence of private enterprise and not subject to the control of government, the United States at first refused to attend. Russia, however, assured the United States that representatives of private enterprises would be welcome. Relations between these two countries were on such a friendly basis that the United States accepted the invitation extended …