Air and Space Law Commons^™

Keep Out! The Efficacy Of Trespass, Nuisance And Privacy Torts As Applied To Drones, Hillary B. Farber

Georgia State University Law Review

A few years ago one might have seen a small object flying overhead without any idea what it could be. Today, it is fairly commonplace to see drones flying around our neighborhood skies. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicts there will be seven million drones populating our skies by 2020. In 2015 hobbyists, recreational users, and commercial businesses purchased unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, in record-breaking numbers. Estimates reveal that over 4.3 million drones were sold worldwide in 2015. Trade industry experts predicted that more than 2.8 million drones would be sold in the U.S. in 2016 …

Flying Under The Radar: Low-Altitude Local Drone Use And The Reentry Of Property Rights, Kenneth Maher

Duke Law & Technology Review

The characteristics and capabilities of civilian drones have proliferated in recent years, giving rise to a burgeoning industry. The popular media and academic literature have predominantly focused on privacy concerns, devoting considerably less attention to the regulatory challenges created by the new technology. Congress instructed the FAA to integrate drones into the National Airspace System in 2012, but rulemaking delays and a moratorium on commercial uses hampered the industry and withheld benefits from the public. Final regulations are now in place, but the new rules revive legal uncertainty over the constitutional limits of federal authority and the ambiguous vertical bounds …

The Second African National Space Law: The Nigerian Nasrda Act And The Draft Regulations On Licensing And Supervision, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

The number of countries with more or less comprehensive national space legislation addressing in particular the authorization and supervision of private space activities continues to grow, and several more countries are currently in the process of adding themselves to that list. One of the more recent and most interesting ones among them is Nigeria, as the second African country after South Africa and—after Brazil—the second leading spacefaring nation from the developing world, to draft, further to a fairly recently established succinct framework law, a set of regulations addressing precisely those issues.

The paper briefly recaps the underlying international obligations, in …

The European Union And The Outer Space Treaty: Will The Twain Ever Meet?, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

In spite of the envisaged Brexit and other crises and problems currently threatening the European Union (EU), that half-way house between a group of cooperating states and a single quasi-federal union of states remains an important player in today’s world, also – at least from a bird’s eye view – in terms of outer space. Its member states Germany and France have the largest space budgets of all European states (discounting the Russian Federation as a European state), and the European flagship projects Galileo and Copernicus, with the European Commission on behalf of the Union in the driver’s seat, are …

Transfer Of Ownership In Orbit: From Fiction To Problem, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

For many years, the concept of transfer of ownership of a satellite in orbit was not something on the radar screen of anyone seriously involved in space law, if indeed it was not considered a concept of an essentially fictional nature. Space law after all developed, as far as the key UN treaties were concerned, in a period when only States—and only very few States at that—were interested in and possessed the capability of conducting space activities, and they did so for largely military/strategic or scientific purposes. The idea of transferring ownership over satellites or other spacecraft involved in such …

Kiwis In Space: New Zealand’S “Outer Space And High-Altitude Activities Act”, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

The number of countries with more or less comprehensive national space legislation that addresses in particular the authorization and supervision of private space activities continues to grow, and several more countries are currently in the process of adding themselves to that list. One of the more recent ones among them is New Zealand, which has an extensive “Outer Space and High-Altitude Activities Act” that is to enter into force in December 2017.

The paper briefly recaps the general underlying international obligations, in particular as following from Articles VI, VII, and VIII of the Outer Space Treaty, the Liability Convention, and …

Spaceways: Airspace In Outer Space, Scott Haeffelin

Space Traffic Management Conference

Forecasted future demand in space travel is driving the need for the development of space traffic management. Currently, orbital space traffic is mostly unregulated with internationally agreed upon best practices and self-interest driving space operators to avoid collisions with other spacecraft. This paper explores the future of space travel by presenting a concept of creating “airspace in space” or spaceways to manage the ever growing volumes of space traffic. Spaceways are analogous to airspace for aircraft with the goal of increasing levels of safety and reducing probabilities of collision. These goals can be achieved by creating traffic rules, defining valuable …

A Novel Approach For Controlled Deorbiting And Reentry Of Small Spacecraft, Larry H. Fineberg, Justin Treptow, Timothy Bass, Scott Clark, Yusef Johnson, Bradley Poffenberger

Space Traffic Management Conference

No abstract provided.

Testimony On Unmanned Aircraft Systems Rules And Regulations, Stephen Henderson

Other Faculty Publications

Chairman Barrington, Vice Chair Brooks, members of the Committee on Public Safety, Senators, and distinguished guests, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today about unmanned aerial systems, or drones, and more particularly about their federal constitutional implications and what might be the constitutional restrictions on any legislation you might like to enact. I am the Judge Haskell A. Holloman Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma, where my teaching and research focus on criminal law and procedure and privacy, including the constitutional rights pertaining thereto.My topic is not an easy one. The constitutional law is …

Weather Modification: A Modest Proposal, Lawrence A. Weirs

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

If You Fly A Drone, So Can Police, Stephen Henderson

Other Faculty Publications

Written for Slate's Future Tense.According to the U.S. Constitution, the more you fly your drone, the more police can fly theirs. “Come on,” you might reply, “that hoary document”—and, yes, sorry to make you the sort who drops words like hoary—“that hoary document surely says nothing about drones.” But in fact it does. At least it does as interpreted by the courts. In particular, it is how they interpret the Fourth Amendment. So, to understand this aspect of drones, we first must understand this provision of the Bill of Rights...

Liability For Damage Caused By Small Satellites—A Non-Issue?, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Small satellites have become a welcome addition to the existing tools to benefit from space applications—they are relatively simple and cheap to construct, and being small, relatively cheap to launch as well, as secondary payloads on launch vehicles where the primary payload may not take up all of the (often standardized) payload bay capacity. As they, moreover, usually orbit for relatively short times in low trajectories before burning up in the atmosphere, they might not seem to pose major or even merely realistic liability risks.

As a consequence, sometimes the issue of liability for damage caused by small satellites has …

Drone Integration: A Pilot's Solution To A Serious Entertainment Problem, 33 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 1 (2016), Daniel Shoffet

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

This paper will explain the current state regarding the integration of commercial and recreational drones into the United States’ airspace with general aviation, as well as identify whether drones and general aviation incidents are common or are likely to occur. This paper will also analyze proposed regulations by the Federal Aviation Administration and any drawbacks that come along with them, as well as other proposed solutions to the current problem with integration of drones. Additionally, this paper will propose a solution which incorporates the use of current aviation technologies to solve the drone integration problem: mandating commercial drone operators to …

Autonomy Of Military Robots: Assessing The Technical And Legal (“Jus In Bello”) Thresholds, 32 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 57 (2016), Remus Titiriga

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

While robots are still absent from our homes, they have started to spread over battlefields. However, the military robots of today are mostly remotely controlled platforms, with no real autonomy. This paper will disclose the obstacles in implementing autonomy for such systems by answering a technical question: What level of autonomy is needed in military robots and how and when might it be achieved, followed by a techno-legal one: How to implement the rules of humanitarian law within autonomous fighting robots, in order to allow their legal deployment? The first chapter scrutinizes the significance of autonomy in robots and the …

Space Traffic Management: A Challenge Of Cosmic Proportions, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Space traffic management has often, for example in the IAA Cosmic Study of 2006, been rather broadly defined as “the set of technical and regulatory provisions for promoting safe access into outer space, operations in outer space and return from space to Earth free of physical or radio-frequency interference.” Oftentimes, especially in space law literature, references or even comparisons have been made to traffic management as it has developed in aviation and (to a lesser extent) in maritime transport.

However, it should be realized that space traffic management, especially under the definition quoted, comprises a considerably larger range of activities …

Oh The Drone-Abilities!: Hollywood's Drone Pursuit Heats Up And The Faa Can't Stop It, Matthew J. Strong

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Wide-Scale Small Unmanned Aircraft System Access To The National Airspace System, John Robbins, Brent Terwilliger, David Ison, Dennis Vincenzi

Publications

Expected revisions of federal policies and regulations for the operation and certification of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) are anticipated to significantly increase the volume of traffic in the National Airspace System (NAS). By investigating critical needs of regulatory compliance and safety, as well as new advancements, it may be possible to identify strategies to address the most pressing concerns of sUAS integration. Findings and recommendations from this research are presented to highlight implications and possible solutions to urgent needs of UAS stakehold-ers, including industry, government, and academia.

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 …

One Centimeter Over My Back Yard: Where Does Federal Preemption Of State Drone Regulation Start?, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The proliferation of cheap civilian drones and their obvious utility for precision agriculture, motion picture and television production, aerial surveying, newsgathering, utility infrastructure inspection, and disaster relief has accelerated the FAA’s sluggish effort to develop a proposal for generally applicable rules and caused it to grant more than 600 “section 333 exemptions” permitting commercial drone flight before its rules are finalized.

Federal preemption in the field of aviation safety regulation is generally assumed, but political pressure on states and municipalities to regulate drones and the ability of this revolutionary aviation technology to open up space close to the ground for …

Nuclear Powered Satellites: The U.S.S.R. Cosmos 954 And The Canadian Claim, Eilene Galloway

Akron Law Review

“On January 24, 1978 the Soviet satellite, Cosmos 954, fell from outer space and entered Canada's airspace. The component parts of this nuclear powered satellite disintegrated and scattered radioactive debris over northwest Canada in an area the size of Austria. Fear of a nuclear explosion and unknown hazards to the environment evoked worldwide alarm. This incident set in motion a variety of studies analyzing one of the most unique multidisciplinary problems created by the use and exploration of outer space. These continuing studies of nuclear power for satellites will lead to decisions of global significance. There is an opportunity to …

Hazardous Biological Activities In Outer Space, Philip Mcgarrigle

Akron Law Review

The purpose of this article is to focus on space acts that may be classified as ultrahazardous (specifically microbiological research) and to discuss how these activities are or will be affected by current or future legal regulations. Legal standards from both a United States and an international perspective will be discussed.

Waste And Duplication In Nasa Programs: The Need To Enhance U.S. Space Program Efficiency, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The U.S. Government faces acute budgetary deficits and national debt problems in the Obama Administration. These problems have been brought about by decades of unsustainable government spending affecting all agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA). An outgrowth of this fiscal profligacy is the presence of wasteful and duplicative programs within NASA that prevent this agency from achieving its space science and human spaceflight objectives. These problems occur due to mismanagement of these programs from NASA and the creation of these programs by the U.S. Congress and congressional committees. This occurs because congressional appropriators tend to be more …

Pirker And Beyond: Questions Of Policy Versus Law On Unmanned Aerial Systems (Uas), Sarah Nilsson

Aviation / Aeronautics / Aerospace International Research Conference

The regulatory versus policy landscape for unmanned aerial system (UAS) users in the United States (US), as of February 2015, is not an easy one to navigate. The whole country is buzzing with the sound of this new technology, not just in terms of engine noise but more so in terms of the public outcry to the invasion of privacy. The federal government is currently drafting laws that will safely integrate these systems within the National Airspace System (NAS). Concurrently, at least 20 states, unable to wait patiently in the sidelines for such legislation, have implemented their own statutes to …

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.

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 …

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.

Regulating Real-World Surveillance, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

A number of laws govern information gathering, or surveillance, by private parties in the physical world. But we lack a compelling theory of privacy harm that accounts for the state's interest in enacting these laws. Without a theory of privacy harm, these laws will be enacted piecemeal. Legislators will have a difficult time justifying the laws to constituents; the laws will not be adequately tailored to legislative interest; and courts will find it challenging to weigh privacy harms against other strong values, such as freedom of expression.

This Article identifies the government interest in enacting laws governing surveillance by private …

U.S. Private On-Orbit Space Situational Awareness Systems And Services: Legal And Regulatory Challenges, Michael Mineiro

Space Traffic Management Conference

One component of Space Traffic Management (STM) is on-orbit Space Situational Awareness (SSA) systems and services. Advances in technology and a growing demand for SSA services, information, and data, coupled with U.S. Government policy that promotes the purchase and use of commercial SSA capabilities, means that private commercial sector is likely to have an important role to play. To date, there is no federal agency with clear jurisdiction over on-orbit remote sensing operations. This paper examines the current regulatory framework, identifies gaps and limitations, and identifies possible ways forward.

Blue Helmets In The Next Frontier: The Future Is Now, Sean R. Mikula

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Sharing Public Safety Helicopters, Henry H. Perritt Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.