Law Commons^™

The Us Space Launch Competitiveness Act Of 2015, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

On November 25, 2015, President Obama signed into law the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2262). This Act encompasses four titles: I. Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (acronym: SPACE), II. Commercial Remote Sensing, III. Office of Space Commerce, and IV. Space Resource Exploration and Utilization.

Title I amends the Commercial Space Launch Act, which comprises the licensing regime for launches, reentries, and launch port activities, including those carrying spaceflight participants on board.

Title II amends the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, which allowed for the licensing of private commercial satellite remote-sensing operations, and essentially requires the Secretary …

Legal Aspects Of Satellite Communications—A Mini Handbook, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Satellite communications, the most extensive, commercialized, and applications-oriented of outer space activities, is not a sector ruled by a single, coherent legal regime even at the international level. Already at present at least ten regimes would potentially or actually impact any particular satellite operation, service, or scenario. The current contribution, intended as a “mini-handbook” excerpted from the 2015 Handbook of Space Law published by the present author, addresses only the three generally most important of those regimes: the generic body of international space law, the regime developed in the context of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the trade regime …

Legal Aspects Of Navigation: The Cases For Privacy And Liability: An Introduction For Non-Lawyers, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Navigation making use of advanced technologies—notably involving radiowaves providing precise information on positioning, navigation options, and on the surrounding geographic environment—has become an ever more present phenomenon in today’s societies. Needless to say, this raises also a number of profound legal issues, some more general in nature, some more specific to the navigation sector or even a specific subsector thereof, alternatively taking on a specific flavor once arising in that context. Among those, arguably the issues of privacy and protection of data against undue interference, respectively liability for erroneous positioning, navigation, or environmental information and any damage or loss suffered …

Effective Exercise Of ‘In-Space Jurisdiction’: The Us Approach And The Problems It Is Facing, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

As mankind moves closer to the fiftieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Outer Space Treaty, the framework international treaty laying down the baseline regime for space activities, it may be considered a major achievement that the treaty, as well as some of its offspring—notably the Rescue Agreement, Liability Convention, and Registration Convention—seem to be as relevant as ever. This is a major feat in an international era of many fundamental changes in the geopolitical, economic, and social context.

Nevertheless, the increasing involvement of private entities in many fields of space activity beyond the (by now) more “traditional” ones of …

About The New Pca Rules And Their Application To Satellite Communication Disputes, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

In 2011 the PCA Optional Rules for Arbitration of Disputes Relating to Outer Space Activities were adopted. The present contribution addresses the possible relevance of these new rules for disputes regarding international satellite communication, noting the existence of various dispute settlement regimes already available and analyzing their respective usefulness for such international satellite communications disputes.

The “Space Side” To “Harmful Interference”—Evaluating Regulatory Instruments In Addressing Interference Issues In The Context Of Satellite Communications, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Interference issues in the context of satellite communications can, in principle, be tackled with legal means from a variety of angles, due to the multifaceted character of both interference and satellite communications as a sector. From that perspective, the present contribution addresses the most important regulatory instruments available to address the particular aspects of satellite communications related to their usage of outer space, and represents a first summary effort to evaluate their particular scope, approach, and general effectiveness.