Air and Space Law Commons^™

Cosmic Force: A Framework For Applying The Prohibition Of The Use Of Force In Outer Space, Erin Pobjie

International Law Studies

Outer space is becoming increasingly contested and existing approaches to identifying prohibited force in outer space lack a systematic foundation, hindering their application to novel challenges such as temporary interference with critical satellites or threats involving commercial space actors. This article addresses this gap by developing the first comprehensive, multifactorial legal framework for identifying a prohibited use of force in outer space. This framework provides a structured method for analyzing non-kinetic actions, temporary effects, and persistent hazards like space debris. It fundamentally advances existing legal approaches in three ways. First, it establishes when States can be implicated in a violation …

Pave Outer Space And Put Up A Parking Lot: Lagrange Points Should Be The Common Heritage Of Mankind, David A. Koplow

Michigan Journal of International Law

Outer space offers a vast array of opportunities, with different locations or regions available for exploitation by diverse users for a growing variety of satellite functions. But not all sectors of space are equally valuable for all applications, and the most desirable venues can become crowded, affording a premium for those who gain access first and impeding the development of a fair and efficient all-inclusive international legal regime.

This article focuses on Lagrange points, a finite series of special locations in space where the gravitational forces from a pair of large celestial bodies interact in unusual ways. These points afford …

Pave Outer Space And Put Up A Parking Lot: Lagrange Points Should Be The Common Heritage Of Mankind, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Outer space offers a vast array of opportunities, with different locations or regions available for exploitation by diverse users for a growing variety of satellite functions. But not all sectors of space are equally valuable for all applications, and the most desirable venues can become crowded, affording a premium for those who gain access first and impeding the development of a fair and efficient all-inclusive international legal regime.

This article focuses on Lagrange points, a finite series of special locations in space where the gravitational forces from a pair of large celestial bodies interact in unusual ways. These points afford …

Repurposing The United Nations Trusteeship Council To Govern The Establishment Of Outer Space Settlements, Andrew Wulf

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Current existing international law and treaties on outer space do not address or regulate private actors’ property claims or human settlements in outer space. American companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, as well as countries like the United States, Russia, and China, are seeking to create colonies on the Moon and Mars. However, there is no international legal authority to allow or regulate this. In order to legitimize and control this impending outgrowth of human settlements, this paper proposes that the U.N. Trusteeship Council be repurposed to govern non-state actors’ claims of outer space property.

First, this paper explains …

Romano Named A Rumsfeld Graduate Fellow, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

James Romano’s interests are out of this world. The 2L at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law is intrigued by the futuristic sounding concept of space law, but is quick to note that there’s nothing futuristic about it.

“More private companies are rapidly entering space,” Romano said, “and I’m deeply interested in the question of ‘What does the future of space look like?’”

While Romano’s focus may be directed upward, his trajectory on Earth is quickly ascending.

Romano is one of 14 scholars selected as a Rumsfeld Foundation Graduate Fellow for 2023-24. The fellowships, named in honor of the …

Markets, Regulation, And Inevitability: The Case For Property Rights In Outer Space, Eliot T. Tracz

University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review

In 1967, a number of countries—including the United States— entered into the Outer Space Treaty. This treaty established the fundamental rules by which countries are to conduct themselves in outer space. At the time, there was more concern about the possibility of the Cold War, and thus nuclear weaponry, extending into space and very little consideration of commercial activity, which was largely the province of Science Fiction. Today, commercialization of space includes satellites, private companies contracting for government work, space tourism, and the early stages of testing materials for resource extraction. Interestingly, no international system for the recognition of property …

United Arab Emirates International Obligations In The Exploration Of Outer Space According To The United Nations Treaties, Ahmed Alzaabi

UAEU Law Journal

The eyes of the world are looking to outer space as a source for a number of opportunities that opened up in front of it to advance civilization and contribute to the political and economic filed. Therefore, developed countries started their race to explore the outer space and try to dominate it since the sixties of the last century.

From 1963, and in order to unify efforts and encourage international cooperation in the field of exploration and use of outer space, the United Nations intervened to declare the principles and issue decisions and legislation agreements that contribute to the development …

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 …

The International Legal Implications Of Military Space Operations: Examining The Interplay Between International Humanitarian Law And The Outer Space Legal Regime, Dale Stephens

International Law Studies

In the contemporary period, many military forces rely heavily on space-based assets to conduct operations across a wide spectrum of contexts. Such reliance necessarily exposes a correlative vulnerability that such assets may be degraded or destroyed, especially in a time of armed conflict. However, the legal framework that governs military action in space during a time of armed conflict is not well explored. This article examines the interaction between International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Outer Space legal regime. Harmonization of legal regimes is a goal of any reconciliation project, although such harmonization may not always be readily possible. In …

Silent War: Applicability Of The Jus In Bello To Military Space Operations, Kubo Mačák

International Law Studies

There are no molecules of air that could carry sound waves in the vacuum of outer space. Accordingly, space warfare may well become the first type of war whose signature sound would be—silence. But does the law of armed conflict (jus in bello) fall silent in times of Silent War? This article addresses the uncertainty at the heart of this issue. First, it delineates the relevant conceptual framework by examining the factual notion of “military space operations,” and its relationship with the legal concept of “armed conflict,” as well as the overlap between the potentially applicable bodies of …

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.”

Report Of The 59th Colloquium On The Law Of Outer Space: Guadalajara, Mexico, 2016, Mark J. Sundahl, Kumar Abhijeet, P.J. Blount, Luis Fernando Castillo Argañarás, Christopher Johnson, R. Moro-Aguilar, Alexander Soucek, Olga Stelmakh-Drescher

Law Faculty Contributions to Books

The 2016 session opened with a keynote lecture by incoming IISL President, Kai Uwe-Schrogl, on the topic of space law and diplomacy.

The IISL is a kind of academic and quasi-diplomatic clearing house for the development of notions and ideas in space law.

International Law And Military Activities In Outer Space, Robert L. Bridge

Akron Law Review

The object of this review is to establish definitively the legal constraints which currently apply to military activities in space. Research has disclosed no single reference less than eight years old which examines all the issues to be discussed here. A great flurry of scholarly legal writing attended the launching of the Russian Sputnik in 1957, but comparatively little has been written since the late 1960's. Thus, much of the source material cited here is ten to fifteen years old.

Private Management And Operation Of The Space Shuttle: Some Legal Problems Related To Market Entry, George S. Robinson

Akron Law Review

Most of the private enterprise constituency interested in participating in the commercial exploitation of near and deep space will be subject to a multitude of new laws and entire legal regimes, ranging in scope from public and private international law to domestic legislation, implementing regulations and, even the old and new anti-trust laws. The majority of the interested business community has no idea that an amalgam of specific legal principles and regimes already exists of sufficient distinction to be called "space law."

The New Era In Outer Space, Hamilton Desaussure

Akron Law Review

In a speech given at the Kennedy Space Center October, 1978, President Carter noted that the United States has invested about one hundred billion dollars in the United States space program and that the inauguration of the space shuttle will bring the second great era of the space age. He stated that the most paradoxical and exciting thing about the shuttle is that "it will make our use of space in the future routine and perhaps not very exciting. . . ." Routine it may not become for perhaps a generation, but exciting it will almost certainly be from the …

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.

Book Review: Outer Space - A New Dimension Of The Arms Race. Ed. Bhupendra Jasani. London: Taylor And Francis Ltd., 1982., W. Paul Gormley

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

An Inference About Interference: A Surprising Application Of Existing International Law To Inhibit Anti-Satellite Weapons, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article presents a thesis that most readers will find surprising, in an effort to develop a novel, simultaneous solution to three urgent, complex problems related to outer space. The three problems are: a) the technical fact that debris in outer space (the accumulated orbital junk produced by decades of space activities) has grown to present a serious hazard to safe and effective exploration and exploitation of space; b) the strategic fact that many countries (notably the United States, China and Russia, but others, too) continue to demonstrate a misguided interest in pursuing anti-satellite weapons, which can jeopardize the security …

Asat-Isfaction: Customary International Law And The Regulation Of Anti-Satellite Weapons, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article asserts the thesis that customary international law (CIL), even in the absence of any new treaty, already provides a legal regime constraining the testing and use in combat of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons. This argument, if validated, is important for both legal and public policy considerations: the world (especially, but not only, the United States) has grown increasingly dependent upon satellites for the performance of a wide array of commercial and military functions. At the same time, because of this growing reliance (and hence vulnerability), interest has surged in developing novel systems for attacking a potential enemy’s satellites – …

The Pen May Be Mightier Than The Sword...But What About A Laser Weapons System, Rebecca Schauer

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Index

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Appendix: Commander's Handbook On The Law Of Naval Operations

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Legal Control Of Outer Space, Joe C. Savage

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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 …

Table Of Contents, Carl Q. Christol

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Chapter I: Introduction, Carl Q. Christol

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Appendix A: List Of Annexes, Carl Q. Christol

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Carl Q. Christol

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Appendix B: Bibliography Of Bibliographies Relating To The International Law Of Outer Space, Carl Q. Christol

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.