Launching State Liability Increasingly Fuzzy: Professor

The idea of holding states liable for damages that stem from launch missions they host is being tested by evolving space capabilities, such as launches not just from land but the high seas or aircraft, Gerardine Goh Escolar, National University of Singapore adjunct law professor, said Wednesday during a U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs conference. She said there also are questions around legal liability arising from in-orbit transfers of property, such as a satellite launched by one country and then effectively owned and operated in orbit by another. Some nations have criticized the idea of imposing liability on a state that allowed its territory to be used for a launch when what was launched is under the control of another state, she said. And some nations have interpreted the Outer Space Treaty and the liability convention to exclude the liability of a launching state when a private space activity or private space actor is involved, but that’s contrary to the wider interpretation taken by the U.N. General Assembly, Goh Escolar said. Liability is restricted to damage caused by a space object, and there is fuzziness around the idea of what constitutes a space object, she said. It's not strictly defined in U.N. texts, but is understood to implicitly mean items with physical properties, including launch vehicles and components of launchers that never enter space, she said. Objects without such physical properties, like electromagnetic waves, are excluded. That limits liability to physical damage caused by, for example, a falling rocket. Yet liability doesn’t extend to service interruption, she added. Goh Escolar said debate continues on whether orbital debris is within the definition of a space object. Given the rapidly growing numbers of objects in orbit, it's going to be difficult to attribute fault when it comes to damage caused by a debris field, Goh Escolar said. She said an international space situational awareness framework could help tackle legal and policy questions, including liability for damages.