First Report on Dispute Settlement, Suborbital Flights, Use of Satellite Data and space debris

MAUREEN WILLIAMS (PRESIDENT OF ILA SPACE LAW COMMITTEE)

Report of the Seventy-sixth Conference

International Law Association

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2015 vol. 1 p. 17 - 1056

0074 6738

FIRST REPORT ON DISPUTE SETTLEMENT, SUBORBITALFLIGHTS, USE OF SATELLITE DATA AND SPACE DEBRIS PART ONEBy Professor Maureen WilliamsCommittee ChairA. The backgroundIntroductionIn the first place a warm welcome to the members who have joined us in the aftermath of the Sofia Conference. These are Dr. Tare Brisibe (HQs), Professor Marco Pedrazzi (Italian Branch), Ambassador Bertil Roth (Swedish Branch) and Professor Matthew Schaefer(USA Branch). The Committee is delighted to have you aboard.We are pleased to announce that one of our longstanding members and world-wideauthority in the field of air and space law, Professor Nicolas Mateesco Matte (Canadian Branch), commemorated his one hundredth birthday on 3 December last, in very good form. The ILA SpaceLaw Committee has sent Professor Matte its very best wishes on the occasion.It is with great sorrow that we report the passing of Professor Vladimir Kopal on 27 January 2014 in Prague. He was a distinguished member of the ILA Space Law Committee to which he contributed with his authority and clear thinking. He was a great supporter of our workand, particularly, of the 1994 ILA Instrument on Space Debris -which continuesunder permanent review by this Committee, for consistency with the changing landscapes. He quoted the ILA proposal frequently in recent UN Documents recommending it as model for creating new law on the intergovernmental level.The ILA Space Law Committee would like this working session in Washington to bein tribute of Professor Kopal.A short time has gone by since my request for comments on the current mandate of four Committee for 2012-2016, in the framework of an initial document dated 26November 2013 and circulated to the Committee members. Answers were completed during December last. Most of these questions and emerging proposals are now included inPart One of the Committee Report, by this Chair, for submission to the Washington Conference. Our members? contributions have had a mostconstructive role and what they had to say was very much valued.Special thanks to all of you who replied so promptly -and indeed, brilliantly- to that first document. To say the least, it gave way to a realisticdialogue between Committee members and Committee officers. This discussion,as announced, is resuming in April 2014 on the occasion of the ILA Seventy-SixthConference in the wonderful city of Washington DC.In January 2014 Professor Hobe´s First Draft on the Legal Aspects of SuborbitalFlights was distributed. This topic, never addressed before by the Committee,is now within our current mandate and comes under Part Two of the WashingtonReport. In both cases (Parts One & Two) questions of substance are to beaddressed at the Washington working session of the Committee.