Space debris in the national and international scenes

MAUREEN WILLIAMS

Yearbook of International Environmental Law, Vol.16

Oxford University Press

Lugar: Oxford, Reino Unido; Año: 2005;

The topic remained firm on the agenda of a number of international and national organisations, both public and private, during 2005, steadily gaining momentum. In fact, the way opinion is moving within and outside the United Nations clearly indicates that the treatment of the topic by the Legal SubCommittee (LSC) of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (Copuos) should not be postponed any longer. Moreover, the positions underlying the document submitted thereto in April 2004 by the delegations of the Czech Republic, Greece, France and the European Space Agency (ESA) stand strong on this point. In 2005 this idea was taken forward to the LSC by the delegations of Greece and the Czech Republic with a view to revising the existing norms of international law applicable to space debris. France, in like manner, with the support of the members of the European Space Agency and cooperating States, submitted a proposal recommending the inclusion of space debris on the agenda of the LSC. Other delegations held that the LSC should examine the legal aspects of space debris mitigation in view of the progress made by the Scientific and Technical SubCommittee of Copuos (STSC) in this field which no doubt justified a move on to the legal arena. Per contra, and on these very same grounds, a small number of countries considered these suggestions premature observing that they should only be considered once the STSC had concluded its work on the matter. Be that as it may, space debris and its implications, legal or otherwise, continues to be the object of close attention at the time, both by the academic world and the world of practical affairs. Moreover, the use of modern technologies to establish the existence of particles in space is being envisaged for the coming years and, in some cases, already put into practice by both industrialised and developing countries.