Legal Aspects of NEO Threat Response and Related Institutional Issues

FRANS VON DER DUNK(CORD.), TARE BRISIBE, FRANS VON DER DUNK, MAUREEN WILLIAMS (ORDEN ALFABÉTICO)

University of Nebraska at Lincoln

Lugar: Lincoln, Nebraska; Año: 2009 p. 50

With regard to potential threats to mankind and the earth posed by Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), three main conclusions can be drawn: (1) developments in space science and space technology have made it possible to predict with some accuracy (and sometimes decades in advance) whether a NEO may present a serious threat, (2) developments have also made it possible in many cases to undertake successful efforts to minimise the chance of actual collision with the earth, but (3) a, preferably international, framework for dealing with such issues is conspicuously missing, which may lead to unnecessary risks of NEO threats resulting in potentially catastrophic damage. Regarding the third conclusion, the need for more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the key legal and institutional issues involved in future international NEO threat mitigation, preferably prior to the first occasion of an actual serious NEO threat arising, has become clear. To address this need the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law has, with the sponsorship of the Secure World Foundation and the support of an International Advisory Board of eminent international space law experts from various states around the world, members of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) and the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), taken the initiative for a Research Project on Legal Aspects of NEO Threat Response and Related Institutional Issues. The Research Project has as its overriding goal to aid the international community of states and the relevant decision-makers in arriving at a proper, fair, transparent, comprehensive, workable, politically, institutionally and legally sound and feasible framework for international decision-making in the face of future NEO threats, notably by analysing some of the key legal and institutional issues involved and by offering, where appropriate, recommendations on how to further develop the legal and institutional framework for NEO threat response.