National Space Law

Authors

Frans von der Dunk, University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law and Lazarski University, WarsawFollow

Date of this Version

2023

Citation

Chapter 2 in Space Law: Legal Framework for Space Activities (Thomas Leclerc, ed.), London: ISTE and Hoboken, NJ: Wiley (2023), pp. 27–55.

Comments

Copyright © 2023 ISTE. Used by permission.

Abstract

This chapter addresses national space law. While often slightly different terms such as national space legislation or national space regulation are used, the term national space law initially should be interpreted in the broadest possible sense. National law would thus refer to the totality of all relevant legal documents at the national level, whether entitled law, statute, act, decree, directive, or regulation, plus customary law, implementation by way of government authorization and jurisprudence, as relevant further explained through the writings of recognized experts.

Then, as space law encompasses “every legal or regulatory regime having a significant impact, even if implicitly or indirectly, on at least one type of space activity or major space application,” national space law should refer to all such regimes at the domestic level. Space activity, moreover, in this context should be defined as every activity “at least partly taking place in outer space” or “predominantly and intentionally directed at outer space.” Following this same logic, space applications refers to activities resulting, to a major extent, from space activities.

However, in the context of this encyclopedia, in this chapter national space law is addressed in particular in its relation to international space law, in turn presenting a category of public international law more generally. This means that national space law in particular will be addressed in its capacity as part of customary international law, as a form of State practice combined with opinio iuris, taking the form here of national interpretation and implementation of international treaty law.

The current chapter therefore focuses in a more limited fashion on that part of national space law that directly follows from, and in turn directly impacts, international space law. It provides for interpretation and implementation of the latter on a domestic plane notably vis-à-vis private entities, who do not themselves constitute subjects of public international space law, yet wherever relevant would have to be subjected to it.