July 2018
Rediscovering UK sovereign launch capability
...rather than the definitive last word on the regulation of space activities within the UK The central trunk of international space law is the Outer Space Treaty 1967. That treaty places requirements on individual signatory States to authorise, licence...
May 2019
Active debris removal faces legal minefield
... debris. First, the principle of non-intervention, as part of general international law, applies to outer space activities in virtue of Article III of the Outer Space Treaty (OST). What is more, according to sentence one of Article VIII of the OST...
October 2020
Morality, rights and responsibilities in space
... Universe’. This Declaration adopts the basic precedents of such documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Outer Space Treaty and other applicable historic credos, while articulating the new reality of an open frontier that is owned...
04 February 2018
The Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Outer Space Activities
... other celestial bodies has been under discussion, by space lawyers at least, since the signing of the Outer Space Treaty in 1967; the typical answer has always been ‘no-one owns outer space’ because it is part of the ‘heritage of mankind’. This view...
June 2022
Patent protection for space manufacturing
... first issue is which country’s jurisdiction space falls into. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty (Article VIII) states that “a State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control...
April 2021
Managing the Moon - a model for engaging with planetary environments
..., with at least 10 missions scheduled before the end of 2021. International treaties such as the Outer Space Treaty (OST) are clear that no territorial claims can be made in space, but the legality of resource extraction is less clear. This position...
