Space Law and Remote Sensing Activities - Discussion paper

MAUREEN WILLIAMS

Río de Janeeeiro

Workshop; UN / Brazil Workshop "Disseminating and developing national and international space ñaw: the Latin American and Caribbean Perspective; 2004

Naciones Unidas

During the 2004 Berlin Working Session of the ILA Space Law Committee a number of points were listed by the Chair which reflected the general thinking, at the moment, on the 1986 Principles. These points were taken as basis for further discussion in the forthcoming months. In this vein, the list was reviewed and slighty adjusted for this Rio Workshop. When summarising, on general lines, the views of the industrialised and developing worlds, it intends to reflect what could be considered as some common denominators on remote sensing today. What follows is a number of conclusions and recommendations drawn from this discussion paper to be seen in the context of each chapter to which they relate. The UN 1986 Principles on Remote Sensing are generally considered as declarative of customary international law, and are therefore binding. Remote sensing activities are nowadays of a predominantly commercial nature. Having in mind that the participation of private entities in space activities is constantly growing, it seems opportune to have a fresh discussion on the UN Principles with a view to identifying gaps and suggesting interpretation criteria. Principle I defines the objective of remote sensing in a way inconsistent with today's world scenario. Principles II, IV, XII, XIII and XIV are too vague to be effective in the present international context. The Principles are silent on a number of important aspects of remote sensing today, inter alia, the distribution, dissemination and commercialisation of data collected by earth observation satellites and subsequently processed. Furthermore, the right of access to data on the part of the sensed state is not, in practice, clearly defined. The doctrine remains divided on the need to proceed towards the drafting of a binding international instrument on remote sensing. At the inter-governmental level the general feeling is that premature solutions should be avoided as no serious claims have arisen so far. Hence, the political arena is not favourable for drawing up binding rules. A realistic course of action at this time would be the enactment of domestic law addressing issues relating to the protection and distribution of data and licensing procedures. This would give greater transparency to remote sensing activities. National laws, in accordance with Article VI of the 1967 Space Treaty, should deal with questions relating to the authorisation and supervision of private activities in space, particularly for the protection of the collected data. State practice, both in industrialised and developing countries, is clearly indicating that, in the application of the UN Principles, gaps are being covered by regional agreements and national space legislation. International cooperation, in this context, should play a major role, especially in ironing out differences between the industrialised and developing world.