Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to In-Orbit, the fortnightly podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world.
[00:00:00] Dallas Campbell: Welcome to In-Orbit, the podcast exploring how technology from space is empowering a better world. Brought to you by the Satellite Applications Catapult. I'm your host, Dallas Campbell and in today's episode, we're going to be navigating the complexities of space law. I'm joined by Lillith Salisbury, Contract Management Analyst at the Satellite Applications Catapult. We have PJ Blount, International Space Law and Telecommunications Law Lecturer at Cardiff University and Laetitia Cesari, Doctoral Researcher at the University of Luxembourg. Humanity's expansion into space raises a myriad of legal questions and challenges. Who owns the resources beyond our atmosphere? How do we regulate space traffic and prevent collisions in orbit? All kinds of things. Well, today we're exploring the historical precedents, current regulations and future implications of governing the expanse of space.
Hey, welcome everyone. Welcome to Lillith, welcome to PJ, welcome to Laetitia. Well, we've got an international team, thank you very much for joining us. But I thought we'd start at the beginning. Did something happen in space where people suddenly said, Oh crikey, we better invent some laws to make sure that doesn't happen again? Or what's the history of space? Or did it begin in 1957 with Sputnik, or what's the origin?
[00:01:36] PJ Blount: That's exactly when it began, when Sputnik went up. That's when we got sort of our first space law rule. There was this moment when everybody didn't know whether or not a satellite could fly over another country in space and the United States made it a point to not object to Sputnik's overflight so that they could establish a legal rule, you can overfly another state.
[00:01:58] Dallas Campbell: But did the Russians, did they go to America and say, Oh, by the way, we're going to launch this thing. Is that okay? Presumably just launched it?
[00:02:04] PJ Blount: They declared that they were going to launch it.
[00:02:06] Dallas Campbell: I thought it was a secret. I thought it was like a top secret...
[00:02:09] PJ Blount: Oh no. I mean, when it actually launched, yes, that was a surprise, but no, in 1955, both states had committed to, we're going to launch something in the space.
[00:02:18] Dallas Campbell: Okay, that's interesting and what, I mean, presumably people beforehand, I mean, we'd been thinking about going into space for a long time and I'm just wondering, did lawyers back in the day kind of consider such a thing as space law, even before Sputnik.
[00:02:34] Lillith Salisbury: I guess you could say it has its origins in kind of sci fi media, things like that. It's people thinking in a very kind of abstract sense of the word. But I think the first time, PJ is definitely right, the first time it actually came to the forefront of people's minds was when the space objects started flying over them with Sputnik and everyone started to go, Oh, actually, this is something that could happen. It's not just kind of, in the far distant future. We need to think about this now. So I think that's when real discussions actually started to happen in the SASH community as to how this is going to be managed and I think that kind of theory around overflight, things like that, is still so extremely fundamental to space law. It's kind of, to me, it's like principle one, that everything came from that.
[00:03:13] Dallas Campbell: Well because obviously we'd have, you know, 1957, we've got aircrafts flying across international boundaries. Did we not just kind of apply that, you know, however the aviation law legalities work to space?
[00:03:29] Laetitia Cesari: I mean, humanity is quite composed of explorers and it's not the first time that, humans are going somewhere and are trying new technologies and international lawyers are developing principles for different fields and for different territories and indeed, there has been parallels drawn with aviation law, but also maritime law, the law of the seas, and we can also mention the Antarctic Treaty, because it's about sharing the same space, pun intended, but also trying to coordinate all of the states that don't share always the same values, but who share at least the interest in protecting their individual activities.
[00:04:17] Dallas Campbell: That's interesting to say, obviously maritime law we must have had for ages and ages. Was it a case of when we started thinking about space law, we kind of took... Can you give us some examples of the types of things in maritime law, for example, that we've kind of transposed into space law?
[00:04:34] Laetitia Cesari: The first, I would say, is not strictly legal, but I will think of big principles and if notion of traffic management can be mentioned, we are looking at this right now, right here. Trying to find a way to coordinate the different objects that can cross paths at some point, especially in low Earth orbits, meaning that the orbit that is the closest to Earth and that is getting more and more populated over the years, because we mentioned space law as a whole part of international law, but we also have to take into consideration states responsibility over their private companies and this is national laws that we have to consider as well. So indeed, we draw parallel lines with other fields of law, but we also have to think, inside our own country.
[00:05:28] Dallas Campbell: So basically, we didn't just kind of invent space law from scratch. We were taking a bit of maritime law, which we've had forever and all that kind of stuff, and aviation law, which we've had for a while, and sort of sewing it together. You mentioned also Antarctica, and I suppose, well, I'm thinking of well 1957, it was the International Geophysical Year, which was a year where lots and lots of nations came together to do all these experiments, well particularly in Antarctica and it was culminated, I suppose, in the launch of Sputnik. But what was it about Antarctica that was so special when it came to transposing that into space law?
[00:06:03] PJ Blount: I think it was the notion that we had set Antarctica aside for scientific exploration, sort of this notion that this belongs to humanity and that gets treated differently than the high seas, right? All states have access to the high seas. But that's a commercial area, that's a military area and Antarctica got treated differently when they wrote the Antarctic Treaty and so the notion was that we can take some of those principles and apply them in space and I think that one of the things to remember is while they were pulling from all these things, they were still dealing with very different physics and so all of it had to be transposed and adapted and new principles had to be invented to deal with those physics of space.
[00:06:43] Dallas Campbell: But I suppose that principle of the Antarctic Treaty is that no one country or nation can claim Antarctica as theirs and you know, you can't build military bases on it and you can't mine it for profit. Am I right?
[00:06:58] Laetitia Cesari: Absolutely. Yes, because exactly as PJ just said, freedom of scientific investigation is really a big principle that was put in the Outer Space Treaty, but also use and exploration of outer space shall be also possible for all humanity, all states and we mentioned the maritime law before if we think of space resources. and how we try to get into celestial bodies. It's very interesting to see that to a certain extent some states are trying to get from the law applying to international waters, regarding resources, regarding fisheries, and so on and so forth and this is where they try to get inspired by what is already existing and what is already working, but also what were the big failures because we do experience from failure. So it's very interesting intellectual process.
[00:07:53] Dallas Campbell: It just, I suppose it seems back then in the 1950s, we had sort of lofty aims when it came to space. It's going to be for science, we're not going to be using it for military purposes, we're not going to be mining the moon, etc. Is that a reasonable summation?
[00:08:09] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, I think the international law that's in place right now is very much the product of its time from the star wars, kind of the US initiative about militarising outer space. So a lot of the principles that have come from that around anti milmilitarisation, things like that. They're definitely a product of the time, the wording that they've used within those, I believe at least.
[00:08:28] Dallas Campbell: Well let's, before we get to, because the star wars, that was the 1980s, wasn't it? Let's go back, because there is a space treaty, isn't it? We call it the Outer Space Treaty, so perhaps somebody could talk us through what that is and how it came to be.
[00:08:42] PJ Blount: I can jump in on that, I guess. So the Outer Space Treaty, I mean look, 1957, Sputnik goes up and it's an existential crisis for the two superpowers. Essentially it showed that the Soviet Union had the capacity to launch a nuclear weapon into space and the notion then being that they could drop it down on the United States, this changed strategic stability. Both states at the time saw huge incentives to try to keep space from being a zone of conflict and so from that, we begin to get sort of this negotiation in the sixties over how can we have some principles? How can we avoid conflict? But even before we had that negotiation, right, both of these states detonated nuclear weapons in space because they wanted to see what would happen. They were curious. and then they decided that maybe this isn't such a good idea and that led them in 1963 to adopting a General Assembly resolution that contained ten principles that they would govern outer space and then by 1967, they had negotiated a treaty that essentially lays out broad principles that govern the way that states are going to engage with each other in the space domain.
[00:09:47] Dallas Campbell: Give us some of those principles then. Like, if I had a copy of the Outer Space Treaty and I was flicking through it, what are the highlights?
[00:09:55] Laetitia Cesari: As we mentioned, we can use and explore outer space, but also we have to comply as a state with international obligations, including the UN Charter because, even though you mentioned that military operations were kind of formed upon, it was very much used to place satellites that were supporting some of the military operations Earth Observation, but also to a certain extent communication and especially from the nineties, navigation, positioning, timing, and so on and so forth. So, we have to keep in mind that there are very many uses to satellite applications. Another principle is the responsibility of states with their international obligations. So if they sign and enforce a treaty, they have to make sure that even their national private entities acting in a way that don't breach this compliance and there is a very big point as well, that is the liability in case of damage and we mentioned traffic management earlier. If there is a collision between two satellites, for instance, or between the satellites and a piece of debris, there are some mechanisms that can be triggered in order for the victim for the states, that was operating satellites or to be repaired from the damage caused, so that will be some of the principles.
[00:11:23] Dallas Campbell: So like, if you kind of rear end someone in space, it's your fault if you do the rear ending. Like, is that a definite law, is it? Like, if you bump into someone, there is some kind of... PJ's shaking his head.
[00:11:36] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, it's very hard to say that's a definite law in outer space because there's all sorts of different areas of this you have to consider, like trying to assign fault to someone in the space. You can't send a surveyor up there to go and look at who's done the damage and what damage has been done. It's very hard to actually investigate what's happened when a sort of collision has occurred. So that makes it a very interesting area of law when you think about, it turns into kind of like a philosophical question of who should be the one that's responsible in this.
[00:12:06] Dallas Campbell: Has anyone crashed into someone in space yet? I'm unaware of like what, where we are with this?
[00:12:12] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, people crash into each other in space all the time, really. It's like, yeah, it happens a lot and I think it's going to keep happening more and more with how the state of debris is happening in space currently.
[00:12:22] Dallas Campbell: Who's crashing into things?
[00:12:24] Lillith Salisbury: Well, once a space object is up there in outer space, you do kind of retain a certain amount of control over it, but only so much and when you think about moving a space object, you have to exert things like fuel, which may affect the longevity of the space object. So if you think about avoiding a collision, it's a cost benefit analysis for each party. It's quite easy, well not easy, but people do foresee when a collision is going to happen with stuff like space traffic management that you guys talked about before.
[00:12:51] Dallas Campbell: You can move it if you, you can, if...
[00:12:53] Lillith Salisbury: Some of them, not all of them, I think some of the older stuff that's up there and some things that are up there now have different maneuverability capabilities.
[00:13:01] Laetitia Cesari: And just to add, because of the example in 2009, there has been a satellite collision between Iridium satellites and an inactive satellite called Cosmos and it really created this awareness through the international community regarding the consequence of such a collision and we also have an example of a piece of satellites that crashed on the grounds of a country, it was Canada, and it really raises many questions because the treaty exists. But how do we apply it in practice?
[00:13:36] Dallas Campbell: There was some woman, she was doing her washing up or something and a bit of the Mir space station went through her roof, maybe in Brazil?
[00:13:42] PJ Blount: A piece of Skylab ended up in Australia, I think it hit a mailbox.
[00:13:45] Dallas Campbell: You can buy lots of bits of Skylab, I hadn't really sort of thought about stuff like that, stuff falling out of the sky onto your...
[00:13:51] PJ Blount: A piece of the ISS went through a house in Florida, like, a few weeks ago.
[00:13:55] Dallas Campbell: Crikey, a bit of the ISS has damaged my house, who's liable for that?
[00:13:59] PJ Blount: It was Florida, so NASA was right there. They had got in touch pretty quick. But I would, if I could, that Iridium Cosmos collision is really interesting. It was the first time that we had two satellites collide on orbit and the problem that we saw out of that is actually nobody saw it coming, you know, we're doing this data analysis all the time, and it hadn't made the top ten conjunctions for that day, the potential ones and so when it actually collided, there was a moment of, well, we didn't know. There was nothing that we could have done because we didn't know. Which plays into all sorts of questions about liability as well, if you don't have warning that this is going to happen, how can you avoid it?
[00:14:34] Dallas Campbell: And what was the outcome? You had this collision that happened, did laws develop as a result of that? Did people learn from that and go, okay, well, we can look at this particular case and we can put a little amendment in the Outer Space Treaty, a little asterisk and go...
[00:14:48] PJ Blount: No, all the space lawyers in the world suddenly rose up and thought, We're gonna see the liability convention, it's gonna be used, we're gonna get some law and no, they handled it all behind closed doors, it was all a diplomatic negotiation between the United States and Russia and the operators and we have no idea what they decided to do.
[00:15:06] Dallas Campbell: So the Outer Space Treaty, remind me of the year 1967 and so we've got things like the Liability Convention as part of that, which you've described very well about who's responsible for stuff. There's also the Rescue Agreement as well, what's the Rescue Agreement? How does that work?
[00:15:20] Lillith Salisbury: Well, the idea behind the rescue agreement is that an astronaut in outer space is a envoy of mankind. So if an astronaut was to fall into a certain kind of distress or they needed some help, your kind of jurisdiction as a part of that shouldn't be part of the assessment as to whether or not you help an astronaut. That's kind of like the fundamental principle of it.
[00:15:40] Dallas Campbell: Okay, that's interesting and just while we're in 1967 and I'm thinking of things like, well, particularly Apollo, was there any sort of legal considerations about America going to the moon and sticking a flag in it and three people from America and crossing all kinds of going to places that nobody had gone before. Did they need to take passports? Did they have to have a visa? All that kind of stuff. Like, were there any kind of discussions about that?
[00:16:05] PJ Blount: So many questions right there. I mean, the US actually pushed really hard to get the Outer Space Treaty done before they went to the moon. You asked about visas and passports, actually, and this is maintained for astronauts in space, NASA holds their passports on the ground in order to, if there's an accident or they need to land in another country, they can get the passports to wherever the astronauts are on short notice. With Apollo, they had to come back and fill out customs forms for the rocks that they brought back and you can see those online. But one of the reasons why the US wanted to really push through is actually to get the non appropriation principle. Right? The idea that just by going there, they didn't take the moon and so, you know, they did the classic, let's put the flag on the moon and that looks like, you know, conquest, but they put it right next to a sign that says, we came in peace for all mankind and so the whole thing was this scripted moment of, you know, we're showing you America's power, and we're going to the moon, and everybody look at this, but by the way, we're not claiming sovereignty or territory here, we are here to represent all of humanity and it's kind of an interesting moment.
[00:17:15] Dallas Campbell: So that nobody can own the moon was established pretty early on and did sort of everyone agree with it? Was the whole kind of world on board with this idea of let's make it a bit like Antarctica without any, you know, people can't commercially develop the moon or put weapons in...
[00:17:31] Laetitia Cesari: I mean...
[00:17:32] Dallas Campbell: ...space and this kind of thing,
[00:17:33] Laetitia Cesari: ...it's in the Outer Space Treaty, and the Outer Space Treaty is you know, one of the treaties that got one of the most member states, adhering to its principles and values. So that's one of the very interesting points. Now, of course, we are legally trained, so we like to define and we like to interpret and with new activities such as space mining, there has been more and more interpretation of what can be appropriated or not and if appropriation is really the way to go, or if there are other ways.
[00:18:08] Dallas Campbell: That's really interesting, and thank you for moving this on. So, we've got these lofty goals in the 1960s, but there wasn't a lot going on in space in the 1960s, compared to where we are now. So, is the Outer Space Treaty, back then, is it fit for purpose now? Is it still held up as this great document, or does it need to be changed? Or is it being changed?
[00:18:29] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, I think I can jump here and just say I'm a very strong proponent of the Outer Space Treaty, I think it still works really well. The way it was written, this principled stance has allowed it to kind of grow with the times. I think that it's not likely that it's going to be changed now, I don't see it happening in the near future.
[00:18:47] Dallas Campbell: Lillith, is it a bit like the kind of Declaration of Independence, which has a kind of, very much a symbolic role as much as anything else? Obviously the American legal system is very complicated, but they always refer back to the, we the people, at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence.
[00:19:02] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, that's kind of definitely how I see it. I think we're constantly re-analysing what's still in there and there's still plenty of discussion has to be had around appropriation, things like that and the fact that we can even still have these conversations around this document shows that it can still apply today.
[00:19:17] Laetitia Cesari: It's definitely a foundational, documents. It is a foundational documents because the discussions that are taking place by the international community, disregarding the fact that they are rival or allies, is based exactly as you said on this very document and it is on civilian commercial topics, but also on military topics. So this is what makes it very interesting.
[00:19:45] PJ Blount: You do see people out there talking about how the Outer Space Treaty was negotiated in 67, all these changes, blah, blah, blah. One of the things that I think that we have to recognise about the Outer Space Treaty is it is not a prescriptive treaty. There are very few thou shalt nots in the treaty. It is actually very open to states doing all sorts of activities and so while it wasn't written with current circumstances in mind, it was written in such a way that it was designed to adapt, or to be adaptable to change circumstances and so, even though it, yeah, no, it had no way of contemplating Starlink or something like that, nevertheless, the principles that it puts into place are things like, hey states, talk to each other when you do things in space, try not to come into conflict with each other.
[00:20:35] Dallas Campbell: Presumably that's got to be the most important thing, is this idea of international collaboration, given that more and more nations are going to be using space and putting stuff into space. It's not just America and the Soviet Union, as it used to be. So is that international cooperation, as we're sort of moving from 1967 to now, is that starting to break down or are people generally on board with this idea of having a unifying document that is going to look after space?
[00:21:04] Laetitia Cesari: So we have to remind also this principle, because we are talking about having the one after the other, the due regard principle, that when conducting the activities in outer space, have to make sure they don't cause harmful interference with other states activities. It says many things, but this notion of not interfering with other states activities is really something to take into consideration because we mentioned the national laws before and national, licensing processes. When a constellation is asking for authorisation, they have to go in before their national authorities to ask for a specific radio frequency, to ask for a specific orbital slot, to ask for a specific rate to launch and all of these different steps are known by the state, and the state chooses to grant this authorisation or not and when it's about launching thousands and thousands of satellites, the state is very much aware and then, you know, they choose like the frequency and the number and so on and so forth because they authorise all of this.
[00:22:18] Dallas Campbell: When I think of Antarctica, one of the things is that it can't be used militarily and it can't be used commercially. We're hearing more and more stuff now about things like asteroid mining, mining on the moon, people, nations or companies staking claims to different things, how does all that work legally? Like, if I wanted to go and mine the moon, could I? Am I allowed to do that?
[00:22:43] Lillith Salisbury: So many things come into this question, yeah. Some would argue there's room in the Outer Space Treaty to allow for this. I think what comes to the core of this would be the idea of appropriation and what kinds of appropriation are permitted and what kind of appropriation isn't permitted. I think what would kind of also be core to this would be the idea that this couldn't solely benefit one state, so say solely, only one state has the capability to be able to go up and they go and mine all these kind of resources and no one else is allowed to use it, only they make the profits from it. It's thinking about how that interacts with international law, and how it would interact with this due regard principle like Laetitia was saying. There's so many different ways to answer this question, it's like a very complicated area of law and I know there's a lot of commercial companies who are looking at this at the moment.
[00:23:30] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. It's like suddenly we're seeing all these commercial companies, can they just do what they want and say, Oh, well, the outer space treaty is kind of vague. If we want to go and start a quarry and start mining on the moon, then that's... we can do that.
[00:23:45] PJ Blount: This actually became an issue for these companies. So Article Two of the Outer Space Treaty is the one that we're talking about, and it states that states can't appropriate outer space, and it's written very vaguely, and I tell people all the time that it's written in such a way that a, your capitalist negotiator can go home to the US and be like, look what I got, I got Article Two, we can mine the moon and if you're a communist negotiator, you can go home and say, look what I got. I got a clause that says they can't mine the moon. I mean, it's that ambiguous. But these companies, and namely Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources, which are no longer in business, decided they were gonna do this, and they went out to seek funding and they went out to investors and they said, Hey, can, you want to give us some money to do this? And like the first question I always got is, well, is that legal? And they would go, we think and the investor would be like, it's not gonna cut it, that's just not gonna cut it and so they began to lobby, specifically the US and then Luxembourg followed suit to pass laws that say that this is legal and so the US in 2015 passed a law that said, mining, the commercial disposition of a space resource is legal, luxembourg followed suit.
[00:24:55] Dallas Campbell: Doesn't everyone have to agree? How come the US or Luxembourg got to say, okay, this is legal or this is not legal. I thought there had to be a kind of collective decision.
[00:25:05] PJ Blount: The notion was, is that we're beginning to, they wanted to influence the interpretation of the clause, because the clause is ambiguous. If they can get enough states to agree that it allows this activity, then it allows the activity and so, this started a snowball rolling and I would say we've actually passed the debate of whether or not you can mine a celestial body and now we're doing a debate of how do we coordinate that? How do we make sure that this happens in safe way.
[00:25:33] Dallas Campbell: Okay. So basically going forward from the 1960s from the Cold War, the Outer Space Treaty gets more and more flexible, is that fair? It's more and more interpretation as people want to do, as nations, companies want to do stuff into space. We have to kind of poke that treaty a little bit and see what we can get away with.
[00:25:51] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, I mean, I would say, I think, the Outer Space Treaty, within that, you're kind of, once you sign it, you're under an obligation to kind of implement it how you see fit under the Outer Space Treaty. So, that is kind of where all these kind of discussions around implementing it in a way that best fits your needs has come about. I think it's resulted in a lot of fragmentation about how people approach implementing these obligations in their own national legislation. But over the entire kind of international community, there are areas where people have agreed and areas where people were in vast disagreement, like around appropriation, things like that. But lots of systems around say, safety in outer space and protection of your astronauts and consent for astronauts to fly and things like that. I think that's an area where people kind of unify and see that, I think it's when the human element comes into it, people were very touchy around how astronauts were actually regulated. But then when you come around to things like economic benefits from space, exploiting space, things like that, I think that's where you find people differentiate a lot in terms of how their approach will come about.
[00:27:01] Dallas Campbell: That's really interesting.
[00:27:02] Laetitia Cesari: I may add a point, I wouldn't say the treaty is flexible, but it can be interpreted and complemented and it has been. There has been some principles to gives states ways to discuss and to adopt specific text on remote sensing, for instance, or on a framework for the safety of nuclear power sources and it's discussions that take decades, but they are happening, they happened and then there is an outcome that is very interesting is that states manage to make certain that they are harmonised in their views of a specific topic, for instance, nuclear power sources in outer space and this is complemented by what we call, soft law. So that will be more guidelines that states accept to work on for several years in order to have specific instructions they can follow, they can choose to follow or not, when adopting their national law. So, the treaty is the foundation and then it's complemented and this is a very interesting process.
[00:28:11] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, that's really interesting. So actually, just while you're on the subject of nuclear power and space, is that something that's talked about in legal space circles? I mean, in the 1960s, all the talk was we must have nuclear power rockets and blah, blah, blah, nuclear was the way forward and we haven't seen that and is that because of legal stuff or is that a technical question?
[00:28:30] Laetitia Cesari: At least for specific uses, it's technical, not legal, because it's also about managing to control a specific source of energy and putting it at use and for what purposes as well. Is it for exploration or is it to put it in specific orbit and so on and so forth? But it changes based on the technology developments.
[00:28:55] Dallas Campbell: Actually, Lillith, can we talk about the sort of military aspects of this? Because this is really interesting. Obviously, you mentioned Sputnik at the offset and of course, Sputnik was launched on a intercontinental ballistic missile. Was this a demilitarisation of space really early on?
[00:29:12] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, I would very much hesitate to call it a complete demilitarisation as outer space has been interconnected with the military since we started to explore outer space. Like most of the space objects we have now are at least dual use between civilian and military uses. So I think when we kind of start to have this discussion around military involvement in outer space, it's kind of very difficult to separate civilian and military uses.
[00:29:39] Dallas Campbell: Yes, of course. I was thinking particularly things like weapons. I mean, am I right in thinking, like a year or so ago, didn't Russia shoot down one of their dead satellites with a laser and caused a great big furore and some crazy stuff like that?
[00:29:52] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, it was an interesting kind of experiment, I would say, in terms of how the international community responded to it. There was a huge wealth of people coming out and saying that this is something that we should not stand by and let be done. This shouldn't become a precedent where people should just be, if they want to get their space object out of the sky, they just shoot it down because it's just not a kind of behaviour that people want to encourage.
[00:30:13] Dallas Campbell: Also I was, I'd be interested if someone had a laser that they could shoot a satellite down and someone shot down a satellite from another nation, does that constitute an Article 5 triggering?
[00:30:24] PJ Blount: I mean, you have gone after a military target. I would be hard pressed to tell you that wasn't an attack.
[00:30:31] Dallas Campbell: That's a sort of big leap from the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Suddenly these sorts of considerations and are these sort of genuine considerations that space lawyers like yourselves are thinking about?
[00:30:42] PJ Blount: I mean, I think that lawyers as well as just geopolitics, I mean, part of Russia's demonstration is connected to India doing it in 2019 to show that they could, which was about showing China that they could because China did it in 2007 and then in 2008, the US decided that they would show China that they could and so there is a huge geopolitical part of this that I think is really important and we can argue about the law all day, but at some point, the lawyer is just one person in the room and as we march closer towards conflict, space becomes less stable, because if you are one of the major players, you depend on space and if you are a military like the United States with a global reach, you depend on space.
[00:31:29] Laetitia Cesari: And if I can add to this, it's very tricky to speak about weapon per se because there is no definition of weapon. We can speak of disruptive capabilities, but we cannot speak of space weapon per se and this is very important to keep in mind because there are discussions that are conducted at the international level in Geneva, especially at the Conference on Disarmament and the member states to the Conference on Disarmament gather on a regular basis on a specific agenda item called the prevention of an arms race in outer space and under this agenda item, they are trying to reduce the tension, build more transparency and confidence building measures, but really work towards the peaceful uses and the peaceful activities in outer space, but also affecting outer space.
[00:32:22] Dallas Campbell: To be clear, so that's a meeting that happens regularly.
[00:32:25] Laetitia Cesari: The Conference on Disarmament, yes, at the UN level, at the United Nations level. So it's at the Palais des Nations in Geneva in Switzerland and yes, on a regular basis, they gather to discuss and then discussions are moved at the first, committee of the General Assembly, so they can discuss it further. But there are two groups that are conducting specific debates, one on the reduction of space threats through norms, rules, and principles of responsible behaviour and another one on the development of a legally binding instrument.
[00:32:59] Dallas Campbell: I'm just wondering, you know, we're so dependent and we talk a lot about this on the podcast of what we do, particularly in low earth orbit. Civilization would not be able to function as it does without our activities in low earth orbit and so because of that, space law becomes increasingly important and presumably increasingly complicated and I'm just wondering from where you're sitting, what are your greatest worries, if you like, or where do you think the greatest weaknesses are in current space law in any area that you'd like to talk about?
[00:33:30] Lillith Salisbury: I can jump in and say that space debris is something that's very important to me. I think it's similar among lots of the kind of community in space law. Our approach to how space debris is managed, how we're going to go about regulating it, is quite important. Of course, that comes along with all the technical stuff. We can only work side by side with what is actually capable of being done about this issue. But anything that can be done to sort of, kind of, cushion that technological progress and make sure that it can be expedited. It's kind of very important to the community, I think.
[00:34:03] Dallas Campbell: Are you talking sort of sustainability generally? So obviously space debris, but actually as we increase our activities in space, being mindful of sustainability in all areas.
[00:34:15] Lillith Salisbury: I think it's just extremely important to make sure that in the next 20-50 years we actually still have access to space. If this isn't kind of brought to the forefront of discussion, it is an almost certain reality that we're still not going to have access to space if we don't kind of get on top of this issue and make sure that it's resolved.
[00:34:31] Dallas Campbell: And do you think that's a likely thing? I mean, is that a scenario that it'll get so bad things like space junk, some big collision event will make parts of low earth orbit unusable and therefore, you know, that would have ramifications.
[00:34:46] Lillith Salisbury: We already have the graveyard orbit, which is where all the kind of spaceyard junk is put at the moment and if you were to try and say, put a Starlink satellite up there, like it was not, it wouldn't be in the right orbit, but just for the sake of making an argument, there's so much debris there, it wouldn't be possible to function as space objects. I think if that was to kind of slowly expand as it has been doing, I think that would make for a case where the, with the Kessler effect especially, where small bits get faster and faster. Essentially just an environmental disaster waiting to happen.
[00:35:21] Dallas Campbell: Where is that in your sort of level of priorities do you think?
[00:35:24] PJ Blount: I think it depends on where you are in space law, right? So I come at this from a security perspective and debris is concerning, but I don't think debris is an insurmountable problem I think the problem that we have is the security threats that are keeping us from being able to have conversations about space and the security threats unfortunately aren't necessarily connected to space.
[00:35:47] Dallas Campbell: What do you mean by security? What kind of security threats? What kind of things are you talking about?
[00:35:50] PJ Blount: We have the three major players in space see each other as adversaries and that's problematic. That means that it's very...
[00:35:57] Dallas Campbell: As in Russia, America, China.
[00:36:00] PJ Blount: And beyond that, we have an active conflict zone right now that involves one of those. That thinks that another one is deeply involved in it, which they are and if that conflict gets hotter and begins to pull other people in, space becomes a target and because space is a potential target, we can't have a healthy conversation about solving space debris, because there's a need to maintain my freedom of action in case, I need to target your spacecraft.
[00:36:31] Dallas Campbell: So we've got security space junk or space debriLaeticia,ia, where's your, where are your, where do your interests lie as a lawyer? Where do you think the problems are or the weaknesses in space law at the moment. that you'd like to solve.
[00:36:49] Laetitia Cesari: Maybe considering data a bit more, because in the end, the objects placed in outer space are very important to, you know, sense and generate data for many different uses and purposes. The thing is, we tend to put our expertise in silos and we are very scared when we don't understand digital tools or cyber and we don't dare going into there as lawyers and this is something that I'm trying to work on a bit. It's really trying to build a bridge between the cyber world and the space world and trying to make specific companies or experts understand that it's not so tough to understand, but at the same time it's essential, because if we don't have a strong cyber security and I go back to the security points raised by PJ, it makes activities very difficult. If we don't have the data related to the positioning of specific satellites, it's very difficult to walk towards better space sustainability. So this notion of data, I think is fundamental.
[00:37:58] Dallas Campbell: That's really interesting, thank you. Just as we sort of come to the end, I'm interested in the UK particularly and also the catapult, what the catapult is doing in the world of space law, how it's helping, how it's working within the sort of legal frameworks and what its role is.
[00:38:14] Lillith Salisbury: Yeah, on behalf of the Catapult, I'd say that our kind of role in the industry of working with both government and SMEs and industry basically, kind of acting as the kind of connecting party between these two, it makes for a really interesting role when thinking about how to kind of practice regulation, especially around helping organisations with stuff like export control and PJ and Laetitia were talking about security, export control comes into that massively. looking at the licensing regime in the UK. both complying with it and thinking about how steps be taken to improve it. So I think in terms of space law, the capabilities of the catapult, it's kind of having informed discussions around how it currently works and how it needs to change in the future, both back and forth with both industry and government.
[00:39:04] Dallas Campbell: Am I right in thinking that the UK is quite forward thinking in terms of space law? It wants to or is taking on quite a big leadership role in this particular area?
[00:39:15] Lillith Salisbury: I would say I'm very pleased with how the UK regime is working so far. There's been a consultation recently on insurance, especially, which I'm really excited to see the products of and there's also a new private members bill going through at the moment on insurance as well. So I think this is an area of law that is consistently being looked at by Parliament and people looking at how licensing could be improved, things like that. So the regime at the moment, it's kind of, a lot of areas of it that kind of allow you to interpret it how you want to, if that makes sense, how you want to apply it. So it's kind of loose in some areas, but that does allow for kind of innovation in these areas.
[00:39:56] Dallas Campbell: Yeah, but is the UK sort of positioning itself I suppose, in taking a global leadership role in developing space law and as a particular area?
[00:40:07] Lillith Salisbury: I'm not sure about a global leader, I think we have a strong national capability in terms of how it's regulated currently. I think looking at leaders in terms of people who are creating these international instruments. It's more international bodies, like looking at UNOOSA and things like that, I think that's much far above what just one nation state could try and implement. I think these international bodies where people are having these discussions, like The UN Disarmament Research Institute and UNOOSA, things like that. I think that's much higher in terms of what can actually be done as the foundation of space law is international discussions.
[00:40:42] Laetitia Cesari: If I can add to it, it was the UK who was, the promoter of the resolution for reduction of space threats through norms, rules and responsible behavior at the Conference on Disarmament. But also, I think the UK Space Agency is undertaking many consultations throughout the private industry and it's very interesting because some small states will have a look at what the UK is doing when updating or adapting their national space law and they will try to see, to take the best practices and because the UK has such a big and old industry, it's kind of, I would say, an inspiration for some smaller countries, who are working at a smaller level.
[00:41:29] Dallas Campbell: That's interesting, thank you. Let's just finish off by gazing into the future. Space is becoming increasingly important. Our role in space and our uses of space are changing rapidly and I'm interested in some of your thoughts, your optimism and pessimistic thoughts of the future from where you're sitting as from legal eyes, what it, what's on your radar? What are you excited about? What are you worried about? What do you think needs to happen? What needs to change? PJ.
[00:42:01] PJ Blount: I mean the thing that worries me, I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. I think that we are not going to be able to really make headway in having a stable space environment from a safety perspective, from a security perspective, from a sustainability perspective, until we have some sort of event that makes us do that. I'm hopeful that we can do it without that event. But my fear is that we're going to continue at an impasse at all routes and that's, we're often at an impasse in the international world.
[00:42:34] Dallas Campbell: Are we in an impasse at the moment? Is that what it feels like to you guys?
[00:42:38] PJ Blount: UNOOSA, the legal subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space ended and they weren't able to adopt a report because there was friction in the negotiations. So they've only adopted a procedural report and we get no information about the discussions that were happened there. That's pretty indicative of an impasse, especially in an area where states have just traditionally been able to talk and been able to get along and that's problematic.
[00:43:05] Dallas Campbell: So really the kind of geopolitics that we're seeing at the moment, which is difficult to say the least, it's kind of filtering its way into your world.
[00:43:13] PJ Blount: Yeah, I would say so, and it's a little...
[00:43:16] Dallas Campbell: Oh God, and Lillith, do you think something like a major event, a space debris event is going to be a motivating factor? It'll suddenly wake everyone up and all that impasse or that pace will suddenly be like, right, we've got to deal with this. We've got to get some proper legal stuff going that's going to work and make this not happen again.
[00:43:37] Lillith Salisbury: I would say there's definitely legal measures in place that I'm happy with, like the IADC has done so much work in this area, Secure World Foundation, things like that. There's definitely mechanisms in terms of soft law that are so important for how we deal with this issue, and I think that has come about as a product of certain catastrophic events that have happened in the past. I think, kind of, it's just now about adherence to this soft law and I do think some sort of events could bring about more strict adherence. But I think in terms of looking at how, in good faith, people comply with this stuff, I think lots of nation states are trying their very much hardest to implement this kind of things into licensing legislation, things like that. In terms of looking forward, like looking to a catastrophic event, I don't know if that would bring about this sudden kind of flow of movement in this area. I think there's already been so much, which I'm very pleased to see.
[00:44:31] Dallas Campbell: Leticia, give us some optimistic things about what's good going forward in the world of space law. What's it, what's like, hooray, this has been fantastic, look, humans can work together beautifully and in harmony.
[00:44:44] Laetitia Cesari: This is exactly what I was going to say after what PJ stated, because what we see is that, yes, the top down approach is a bit challenging, but It's not the first time that we take decades and decades to agree all together on a specific legal instruments. It doesn't mean that the, all of the base, those who have the hands on the motor, you know, in the motors are not moving and are not negotiating and adopting specific standards of protection and developing new technologies all together and then, eventually, they bring it to the top and they work all together and all of the ecosystem of space operators, manufacturers, users, beneficiaries, are very much interested and motivated to protect space activities because they understand the benefits it brings to everyday life, but also to the business, also to humanitarians, also to all types of activities and this is why they are moving forward together and this bottom up approach is taking place at the same time at the national level and soon at the international level. So quite optimistic about this.
[00:46:00] Dallas Campbell: Good, well that's good and just as a final thought, I'm just interested, do you think within your community, are you happy with the degree of leadership? Do you feel there is a sort of collective leadership or where is that leadership coming from?
[00:46:14] Lillith Salisbury: Well, I think I can only say that leadership in this kind of area is something that might stifle these kind of collaborative discussions that we're having. I think the space law community is very good. at talking to each other, we love to talk. So if you get a group of space lawyers in a room anywhere, everyone could speak for hours about loads of things. I think in terms of looking at an overall leadership as to how things should be done, I think potentially that could stifle these kinds of discussions.
[00:46:43] Laetitia Cesari: If I may add to this, it's very polycentric. It's very polycentric because there are different stakeholders interested in the field who are developing new ideas and new ways for better governance and there are many articles on this polycentric approach, but we have to consider it. It's not having a big head, it's having a lot of different heads.
[00:47:03] Dallas Campbell: No, I was just, I was curious. I was wondering like, are there certain particular nations that are driving things more than other nations? But polycentric, that is the word we're going to take away with us today, polycentric, I like that. Anyway, listen, thank you so much for joining us and talking about space it's been great and it's been fun and it's been interesting and worrying and exciting all at once and it's been a pleasure to have you all and thank you for giving up so much of your time to chat to us here today and good luck with the future.
[00:47:33] Laetitia Cesari: Thank you.
[00:47:33] Lillith Salisbury: Thank you.
[00:47:33] PJ Blount: Thank you.
[00:47:33] Dallas Campbell: To hear future episodes of In-Orbit don't forget be sure to subscribe on your favourite podcast app and to find out a little bit more about how space is empowering industries. In between episodes the Catapult website is the place to go or you can join them on social media.