Revision of UNCLOS regime sets a good precedent for governance of outer space from Sun, 07/06/2014 - 23:01
The solutions the international community worked out to resolve some of the most contentious issues over ocean governance -- specifically, how to equitably divide up a common shared resource, how to sustainably manage the global commons for the benefit of all, and how to ensure all states have the freedom to navigate a global common -- have potential to serve as the basis for a similar agreement for outer space.
Quicktabs: Arguments
UNCLOS, especially after its realpolitik redrafting, gives us an effective framework towards drafting a new Outer Space Treaty. Both treaties contain the concept of a lack of sovereignty and that resources of the deep sea and outer space are considered to be the common heritage of mankind. UNCLOS contains a detailed process by which a State or entity is granted limited access to hard-to-reach resources that can easily be adapted to the needs of outer space. The process that the drafters of UNCLOS underwent to gain global acceptance of the Convention shows us a way towards forming an internationally directed group, such as the ISA, to manage those resources that is perhaps less than entirely idealistic, but can gain the support of most, if not all, of the world’s nations.
When all is said and done, one can hardly consider an agreement that does not acknowledge the contributions of those nations at the forefront of space exploration and give them, or their corresponding corporations, every reassurance that resources garnered from space and returned to Earth can be traded freely in the world market for the benefit of all the nations of the world.
Both China and the United States agree that the EP-3E aircraft and the Impeccable were operating outside China's territorial sea but within China's EEZ.184 Despite the unambiguous language of the UNCLOS treaty, China continues to pursue a strategy of gradually extending its strategic depth or sovereignty in order to support offshore defensive operations.185 China's adherence to this flawed legal interpretation, reinforced by aggressive military action, demonstrates that "through an orchestrated program of scholarly articles and symposia, China is working to shape international opinion in favor of [its preferred] interpretation of the Law of the Sea by shifting scholarly views and national perspectives away from long-accepted norms of freedom of navigation and toward interpretations of increased coastal state sovereign authority."186 By doing so, China is not only distorting the settled law of the sea, but perhaps also preparing to deploy a similar strategy in the space domain.
Reliance on the absence of an explicit airspace-space demarcation ignores historical context by attempting to identify a minimum altitude at which space begins. In fact, there is no controversy that all current satellite orbits transit within the space domain.211 Irrespective of the demarcation argument, Articles I and II of the Outer Space Treaty (OST) expressly refute any conception of vertical sovereignty.212 Article I designates outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, as "the province of all mankind." This language has been universally understood to mean that "all nations have a nonexclusive right to use and explore space.213 Article II further prohibits in space any "national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." Thus, the OST clearly permits all uses of the space domain short of an appropriation by claim of sovereignty or the like.214
It therefore seems clear that the plain language of the OST prohibits any claim of vertical sovereignty in space. Sovereignty denotes supreme authority within a territory,2l5 "the right to command and correlatively the right to be obeyed," with the term "right" connoting legitimacy.216 Thus, a claim of sovereignty over space, or any portion thereof, seeks, in some measure, to extend a state's territorial sovereignty into the space domain.217 The holder of sovereignty derives its authority for sovereignty from some mutually acknowledged source of legitimacy.218 In space, the OST's explicit prohibition on appropriation removes the essential support for legitimate sovereignty.219
In this sense, the vertical sovereignty argument is akin to the 1976 Bogota Declaration that geostationary orbit was not part of outer space since its nature depends specifically on gravitational phenomena from earth.220 Thus, the Declaration further argued, those portions of geostationary orbit directly above equatorial states are sovereign territory of those states rather than part of outer space.221 The international community rejected this argument222 Likewise, it should reject the vertical sovereignty argument.
However, heated discussions did not lead to any substantial improvement in the legal regime accommodating the commercialization of outer space. Existing space law does not provide any guidance enabling the creation of an effective regime fostering commercial space exploitation. Theoretical analysis did not come to any conclusion acceptable to all the parties. Nevertheless, even with the unstable legal status in place, various par- ties, foreseeing potential profit, have started their own projects aiming at commercializing outer space. For example, the IGA provides a specific model for multinational cooperation among active participants without an overarching international legal and governance regime." The United States has also executed a series of bilateral Memoranda of Understanding with Partner States concerning outer space activities."8 With no clear-cut rules and regimes in place, the activities are carried out subject to Partner States' own interpretations. This is increasingly det- rimental to the development of commercial activities in outer space. States can take actions at will and there are no defined rules governing their activities, which ultimately leads to the devastating result of a "gold rush" by space-faring states. Developing states will be completely left out of the game. Such a situation will fail to provide a predictable and stable environment which is necessary for the involvement of private entities, and will fail to win international approval.