Activities of international organisations relating to space law, ILA pp.9-13

MAUREEN WILLIAMS

Viena

Conferencia; 45th Session of the Legal Subcommittee - United Nations (Copuos)- Doc. A/AC.105.C.2/l261,pp.9-13; 2006

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

The ILA Space Law Report for its 72th Conference (Toronto, June 2006) Soon after the Berlin Conference in August 2004 the ILA Space Law Committee became involved in the preparation of its Report for the Toronto Conference. This implied further research on the Legal Aspects of the Privatisation and Commercialisation of Space Activities with special reference to Remote Sensing and National Space Legislation with a view to producing a Second Report where, as noted earlier, registration issues would also be addressed. This Second Report is expected to be on the ILA website (www.ila-hq.org) by the end of March 2006. The first step was a Questionnaire prepared by the Rapporteur and the Chair of the Committee. It circulated among the members in early 2005 and can be found on the ILA website. It consists of a comparative study of state practice relating to remote sensing, national space legislation and registration issues. The Committee members made valuable and realistic proposals for a more precise and consistent legal framework on these questions. The general idea was to avoid over-regulation, which is usually short-lived. The answers to the Questionnaire provide an interesting cross-section reflecting the positions of industrialised and developing countries on the use of these technologies. The challenge now is how to achieve a reasonable equilibrium of the many elements and interests involved. On these bases the Chair and the General Rapporteur are preparing the Toronto Report. In accordance with the recent practice of the Committee, and given the width of the topics involved, Professor Maureen Williams continues in charge of Remote Sensing and Professor Stephan Hobe of National Space Legislation. Among the basic sources for our present work are the Berlin 2004 recommendations, the conclusions and suggestions of the UN/Brazil Workshop on "Disseminating and Developing National and International Space Law: the Latin and Caribbean Perspective" (Rio de Janeiro, November 2004), the LSC / IISL Symposium (Vienna, April 2005), the Surrey Symposium dealing with the very thorny problem of digital mapping (ECSL, April 2005), the Cologne International Syposium of June 2005 conducted, as described earlier, by Professor Stephan Hobe, the International Institute of Space Law Colloquia where a good number of members of our Space Law Committee participated (Vancouver, October 2004 and Fukuoka, October 2005) and the space law research programmes, presently underway in Argentina, conducted by Professor Maureen Williams (University of Buenos Aires / Conicet and the Argentine Space Agency - CONAE). In this context the ILA Committee finds it useful to follow a "building blocks" procedure, as suggested by Professor Hobe at the 2004 Berlin Conference. First and foremost comes the obligation of states to authorise and supervise space activities within their jurisdiction, particularly those of private entities, pursuant to article VI of the 1967 Space Treaty. Next is the registration of space objects, an issue which, as already observed, is included in our Committee´s terms of reference. Last, but certainly not least, is a realistic handling of compensation questions.