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Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) encourage creators by providing legal protection to their creations and by giving scope to make monetary profit. Even though most of the human endeavours and creative fields have recently fallen under the purview of intellectual property rights, space exploration, a significant area of human exploration, remains in direct conflict with IPR regulations. The lack of a legal IP regime for developed space technologies hardly encourages investors to invest the required large sums in such endeavors. It is acknowledged that the Space Treaty of 1967 places limitations on the creation of territorial intellectual property laws for space exploration; nonetheless, agreements like the Convention on the High Seas-1958 and the Registration Convention-1975 provide some avenues for achieving this. The paper examines the current state of space intellectual property regulations and puts forward some propositions on how this issue can be resolved. The paper also engages a study on India's response for adopting a Space IP Bill and highlights how this bill ignores about the IP rights of space agencies and other private investors while adhering to the Space Treaty's regulations and prioritizing national security concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercial spaceflight development necessitates striking a delicate balance between the public nature of outer space and the plivate nature of commercial human spaceflight. Consequently, it is imperative to establish an international liability Tegime tO e#ectively manage the costs and lisks associated with commercial human spaceflight. While general rules are provided by international space law, some nations engaged in space activities have implemented national laws to regulate liability for damages. However, establishing an international liability regime encounters various challenges, including the absence of uniform liability insurance, inconsistencies in constituent elements of liability and uncerminties surrounding the assumption and allocation of liability. To address these challenges comprehensively, the international community can introduce compulsory liability insurance, enforce strict liability for damages incumed during commercial human spaceflight operations, identify liable parties through active participation and establish a dual-liability system that fosters consensus while ensuring equitable treatment for all stakeholders involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK Space Industry Act 2018 has now been supplemented with the new Space Industry Regulations. While examples of Space Tourism grace our screens and newsfeeds on an increasingly regular basis such as William Shatner's recent voyage (Luscombe, 2021) the UK Regulations also pave the way for 'human occupants' (UK Space Industry Regulations, Regulation 2) to experience such a flight (UK Space Agency, 2020). A key part of the regulations pertaining to human occupants is that they must provide 'informed consent' before embarking on such a flight. If, as is likely to be the case, future courts are to draw analogies with the current state of medical law in this area, spaceflight operators will have to tread carefully if they are to avoid vitiating any informed consent by 'bombarding' any willing human occupant with technical detail prior to their flight (Simmonds, 2020). Whilst this could prove legally problematic for 'capacitous' individuals within the meaning of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, it is likely to be even more so for those who could be deemed, in some aspects of their cognitive ability, to lack capacity. UK Space Legislation as it presently stands faces three problems: 1) There is presently no legal mechanism under UK Space Law to determine capacity. 2) As examples from the Court of Protection indicate, 'capacity' is a very nuanced legal concept and individuals who, on the fact of things, may appear to lack capacity as regards potentially risky activities, have been regarded by the Courts as, at least, partially capacitous in respect of certain decisions. Operators may find themselves having to tread a fine line to avoid claims of discrimination. 3) because of point 1) and the state of the Law of Contract as regards contractual relationships entered into by potentially incapacitous individuals, further significant legal problems may present themselves. This paper will focus primarily on the Law in England and Wales but some of the overarching conclusions will be of relevance to all UK jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing the medium of science fiction as a tool for both entertainment and serious inquiry, this paper utilizes a high-altitude overview of 17th and 18th century English colonial history as a case study to contemplate the potential future development of space law by a small extraplanetary community faced with the possibility of extinction. The analysis will follow a three-chapter structure, aiming to explore potential futures by considering the past, in hopes that future human expansion beyond the Earth succeeds without repeating those transgressions perpetrated by European, English and--eventually--American imperialism. The first chapter will examine the legal history of self-subsistent English colonies in North America and Australia, observing how these fledgling societies created new legal regimes by incorporating both their European legal heritage and novel concepts of law influenced by a new (to them) and uniquely challenging environment. Chapter Two will then present informed observations--based on certain historical precedents set by previous colonial societies--as to how a newly created Martian settlement might adapt its 21st-century legal heritage to accommodate the needs of a community on the edge of oblivion, anticipating that such a community will likely reshape its inherited legal framework in the interest of its long-term survival. Finally, Chapter Three will analyze how a fragile planetary settlement might defend its potentially novel (and likely controversial) actions under general international law, with special consideration for its potential exercise of self-determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity's importance in addressing legal problems is clearly apparent from the resolution of the Cold War's significant geopolitical tensions through space exploration. This paper will consider the importance of creativity as a means of addressing legal lacunae within space law, since the relative youth of space exploration and its accelerating technological progress means that traditional legal and regulatory solutions are not always appropriate. Spaceflight participants may encounter various situations that general human experience and law provides little guidance for. The initial creativity within the legal and regulatory aspects of space activity that saw the signing of major international treaties has since been stifled in favour of relying upon the established legal order. Increasingly awkward legal contortionism is occurring because of strict adherence to historical agreements. Furthermore, precedents of wider international law are also ill-fitting options because they were never intended to apply to such instances. This lack of viable solutions has generated legal lacunae. Increased diversity of actors and activity within the space industry means that employing such measures does not reflect modern space exploration's reality and as explorative efforts move further away from Earth, attempts to apply law and policy written in different geopolitical climates becomes increasingly strained. This article will highlight these key issues, advocating that creativity be considered more directly by the law to help advance society in a way that enables these lacunae to be traversed. This discussion will advocate creative fusion of both binding and non-binding agreements to try and break the deadlock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce here a new critical judgments project: the Anthropocene Judgments project. The project is intended to be an interdisciplinary, collaborative, visionary initiative, a collective effort on the part of legal scholars, writers of speculative fiction, literary scholars and climate scientists to anticipate what may lie ahead. Participants will engage in futuristic modelling and write judgments of, and for, the future – constructing innovative pathways of legal reasoning to address the novel, socio-legal and environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. In this article, we develop our ideas for the project, canvass possible directions for future judgment writing and explain the importance of this ambitious endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current and further predicted increase of objects launched into outer space brings with it endless opportunities but also growing risks. Among those risks is an increase in harmful interference with radio frequencies. Harmful interference can interrupt the functioning of satellite systems thereby causing significant financial losses to satellite operators and potentially causing more acute danger if the interrupted satellite transmissions have safety or security implications. International space law and especially the International Telecommunications Union provide substantive rules intended to prevent and resolve harmful interference. However, as with international space law in general, these rules, while substantive in nature, lack an efficient and binding dispute settlement mechanism available to private parties. To the extent that the prevention of harmful interference is often agreed in contractual instruments negotiated by different satellite operators, this article argues that the parties to these so-called coordination agreements should consider agreeing to refer any future disputes relating to their agreements to international arbitration thus ensuring the availability of an efficient dispute settlement mechanism for any harmful interference disputes they might face in relation to these agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space activity is growing at an exponential rate, with world powers heightening their military capabilities and non-State actors using military-able space technology. The rapid development in space military technology has created the real possibility that the next arms race will occur in outer space. Further, the war in Ukraine has showcased the impacts of unilateral military acts of aggression, emphasising the urgent need to address the global issue of space weaponization. This article will consider the gaps in the current international space law agreements relating to space weaponization. Then, the article will explore the conceptual challenges for bridging these normative gaps, with the potential for a soft law approach as a way forward. This article places a spotlight on the urgency for the international community to negotiate and develop appropriate regulations for space weaponization before outer space becomes a warfighting domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, focusing on its geography, history, and geodetic surveys. It discusses the country's location on the equator and its borders with neighboring countries, as well as its diverse climate. The article also delves into the colonial history of the Congo and the establishment of the Congo Free State. It provides information on geodetic surveys conducted in the country, such as the Katanga Triangulation and the use of different datums. The article concludes with an update on the delimitation of the maritime area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Additionally, it mentions the availability of MRS-4, a resource that offers animated illustrations and videos to enhance the reader's experience. MRS-4 can be accessed by ASPRS Members as a member benefit or purchased by non-members, and readers are directed to a specific website for access. [Extracted from the article]

"The urge to explore has propelled evolution since the first water creatures reconnoitered the land. Like all living systems, culture cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies both existence and spectral stability properties of bounded spatially periodic traveling wave solutions to a large class of scalar viscous balance laws in one space dimension with a reaction function of monostable or Fisher-KPP type. Under suitable structural assumptions, it is shown that this class of equations underlies two families of periodic waves. The first family consists of small amplitude waves with finite fundamental period which emerge from a Hopf bifurcation around a critical value of the wave speed. The second family pertains to arbitrarily large period waves which arise from a homoclinic bifurcation and tend to a limiting traveling (homoclinic) pulse when their fundamental period tends to infinity. For both families, it is shown that the Floquet (continuous) spectrum of the linearization around the periodic waves intersects the unstable half plane of complex values with positive real part, a property known as spectral instability. For that purpose, in the case of small-amplitude waves it is proved that the spectrum of the linearized operator around the wave can be approximated by that of a constant coefficient operator around the zero solution and determined by a dispersion relation which intersects the unstable complex half plane. In the case of large period waves, we verify that the family satisfies the assumptions of the seminal result by Gardner (Spectral analysis of long wavelength periodic waves and applications , J. Reine Angew. Math. 491 (1997), 149–181) of convergence of periodic spectra in the infinite-period limit to that of the underlying homoclinic wave, which is unstable. A few examples are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The use of surveillance technologies by legal authorities has intensified in recent years. As new data collection technologies expand into law enforcement spaces previously dominated by interpersonal interactions, questions emerge about whether the public will evaluate interpersonal and technologically mediated interactions with legal authorities in the same ways. In an analysis guided by procedural justice theory, we examine whether and how legal authorities' use of decision-making technology affects public evaluations of an authority-subordinate interaction and its outcome in the context of airport border crossings. Using an experimental vignette design (N = 278), we varied whether an encounter between a traveller and border security "agent" that produced a secondary search was described as interpersonal (conducted by a human agent) or technologically mediated (conducted by a machine agent). We also varied the traveller's group membership relative to the nation-state, describing the traveller as either born in the country in question and a member of the nation's most common racial group (in-group) or not born in the country and a racial minority (outgroup). Both encounter type and group membership independently affected perceptions of the interaction (procedural justice judgements) and its outcome (distributive justice judgments). Technologically mediated encounters improved perceptions of procedural and distributive justice. Further, procedural justice judgments mediated the relationship between encounter type and distributive justice, demonstrating how perceptions of interactions influence perceptions of the outcomes of those interactions. Outgroup members were evaluated as having worse experiences across all measures. The findings underscore the importance of extending tests of procedural justice theory beyond interpersonal interactions to technologically mediated interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an analysis of the consequences of the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act 2015 on geopolitics of the Outer Space. In the first part is provided the critical review of development of the space law regime to the nowadays. This section mentions both international and national space legislation. Then uniqueness of the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act 2015 is brought up. The main part, and original contribution of the article is provided in following chapters which contain: 1) legal debate on possible violation of international agreements, in particular the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Among the Outer Space Treaty's key points are that it forbids claiming celestial objects and mentions that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind; 2) impacts of the implementation of the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act 2015 on international relations; 3) issue of commercialisation of space activities and transformation of space sector to so-called New Space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General hyperbolic systems of balance laws with inhomogeneity in space and time in all constitutive functions are studied in the context of relative entropy. A framework is developed in this setting that contributes to a measure-valued weak vs. strong uniqueness theorem, a stability theorem of viscous solutions and a convergence theorem as the viscosity parameter tends to zero. The main goal of this paper is to develop hypotheses under which the relative entropy framework can still be applied. Examples of systems with inhomogeneity that have different characteristics are presented and the hypotheses are discussed in the setting of each example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Your relationships with smart-devices are about to get complicated. The ability to operate the physical functions of smart-devices from far away introduces new actors into the previously intimate relationship between the user and the device--the operators. The Internet of Things (IOT) also facilitates more complexed and nuanced use of smart-devices, most notably enabling the personalization of a specific device for a specific user. Together, remote operability and personalization of smart-devices bring forth a myriad of legal and social opportunities and challenges. The Article explains the nature of personalization of smart-devices and teases out its significant implications. Personalization of smartdevices combines the dynamic personalization of code with the influential personalization of physical space, making it easy for operators to remotely modify the smart-device and influence specific users' behaviors. Crucially, personalization of smart-devices can affect the creation and enforcement of law: it facilitates the application of law on spaces and activities that were previously unreachable, thereby also pushing toward the way for legalization of previously unregulated spaces and activities. The Article also distinguishes between two kinds of smart-devices operators: ordinary and prime-operators. The Article illustrates the challenges that ordinary operators bring forth by identifying different kinds of ordinary operators (users, private companies, and the state) and modes of constraints they can impose on users (notice, nudge, and prevention). It then normatively discusses the distribution of first-order and second-order legal powers between ordinary operators. Finally, the Article introduces the prime-operators of smart-devices. Prime-operators have informational, computational, and economic advantages that uniquely enable them to influence millions of devices and extract considerable social value from the operation of smart-devices. Prime-operators also hold unique moderating powers--they govern how different operators and users operate the smart-devices and thereby influence interactions mediated by smart-devices. The Article discusses the nature and role of prime-operators and explores paths to regulate them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space law is regulated largely by international treaties which have little to say regarding the use and regulation of commercial space. As the costs of access to outer space decrease and the benefits exponentially increase, more countries are seeking to support and encourage 'NewSpace' entrepreneurs in order to establish commercial space industries. Australia has been a minor player in the space domain, primarily through involvement with Europe and the US since the late 1960s, but its domestic legislation bears little relevance to the shape of space industry today. Australia's neighbour, New Zealand, now wants to become a NewSpace incubator and has recently enacted legislation designed to make it a competitive host nation for launch providers. This article will compare the regulatory space regimes of these two countries to provide an assessment of the importance of domestic regulation in fostering competitive commercial space services, for countries seeking to become competitive in the commercial space race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As numerous governments and commercial entities plan ambitious expeditions into outer space and to celestial bodies, humanity's heritage in space is threatened. Fifty years following the Apollo 11 landing, we have recognized the historic, scientific, and cultural importance of this event and other spacefaring firsts, but the existing means to protect the resulting heritage is inadequate. This Article examines the protections currently available to those objects and sites that represent the great achievements of humankind in using and exploring space, with a focus on Tranquility Base--the Apollo 11 landing site. Existing protections are analyzed under both cultural heritage law and international space law, focusing primarily on the language of relevant treaties in these fields. There have been several endeavors undertaken by the United States to protect the Apollo landing sites in general and Tranquility Base in particular, including the One Small Step Act passed by the U.S. Senate in July 2019. These actions are reviewed herein for appropriateness and efficacy. Recommendations to optimize the protection of space heritage in the future are then presented. This Article concludes that the most effective approach consists of a multistep process that can include unilateral actions, bilateral treaties, and a multilateral soft law solution, ideally culminating in a multilateral treaty before potentially leading to the formation of customary international law. Fundamentally, cooperation and good faith are the cornerstones of any solution to this issue under international law. It is important that the legal rules governing interaction with and preservation of these objects and sites be clearly determined to avoid irreversible damage to a unique and irreplaceable resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space law is currently undergoing a phase of considerable change. The privatization of space activities and the growing need to maintain a sustainable use of outer space are the two main characteristics of this evolution. They require new legal approaches and different forms of regulation. The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) has, for the past 60 years, been the main forum for space lawm aking and its further development. The challenges to space law are, at the same time, challenges to UNCOPUOS and its mandate. The Member States will have to make UNCOPUOS more reactive, flexible and integrative character in order to handle the future development of space law as a key basic element for a free, peaceful, and equitable order in outer space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The law and economics of space policy have recently become an important research area. In this Article, the author contributes to the literature on legal frameworks for outer space activities, specifically space settlement. Article II of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty forbids the extension of state territorial jurisdiction to outer space. Barring revision of this fundamental tenet of international space law, rules for human conduct in space must come from somewhere other than states. The author proposes privately owned and operated communities (proprietary communities) as a model for space settlement and residence. The author surveys the mechanisms that make such communities likely to supply good governance. He also explores a model lease for such proprietary communities: the ORBIS lease, drawn up by famed scholar of proprietary communities Spencer MacCallum. The author concludes by discussing why the voluntarist model would be expected to outperform other models, as well as implications for state policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Jurídica Piélagus is the property of Universidad Surcolombiana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Yearbook of International Law is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Space Law is often described as a collection of more or less amusing and unrealistic rules. For society, outer space is more of an imaginary sphere than a concrete space of Public International Law. That is why it is an ambitious project to explain that the international community of States has created a legal order for exploring and using outer space by concluding a binding international treaty. With a duration of 50 years, the Outer Space Treaty is in an advanced age. This special anniversary represents good reason to evaluate basic decisions and to predict future challenges of this modern part of Public International Law. The article explores the recent developments in Space Law and seeks to verify its status within International Law. Comparable to the Law of the Sea, Air Law, and currently Cyber Law, Space Law is the expectable international legal reaction to the fact that flights into outer space became possible, calling for a system of ordering. Together with the space-oriented fields of law mentioned above, Space Law is part of an emerging new International Law of Spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses, in a framework, the efforts to make national space legislation for India. It identifies that such efforts are in a forgetfulness of the indigenous specialties of the Indian Space Program, particularly of its science which has India advancing in space technology. All efforts in making a national space legislation have become an imitation of efforts elsewhere because of their absorption in the otherness of epistemologies foreign to the Indian self. The article recognizes that, for the continued success of India as a space faring nation, legislation or policy, as the case may be, needs to recover the indigeneity of the science of the Indian Space Program. Hence, this article builds a framework that can challenge the misguided ambitions of the advocates of national space legislation. It also includes an Indian narrative on human space exploration based on the national experience of India on matters relating to space. The article also proposes means for India to continue to fare in space through a reimagined triad of science, legislation, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article examine the international legislative framework for use of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Topics discussed include need of a global legal structure that can accommodate the in increased use of GNSS, U.S. Global Positioning Service (GPS), and laws and GNSS of different countries such as India, Russia and China. It also mentions the provisions of the Outer Space Treaty, governing the activities of states in the exploration, that forms the international space law.

The article looks at the H.R. 2617 Apollo Lunar Landing Legacy Act which defines laws for establishment and protection of the sites where the Unites States' Apollo program landed men and machines on the Moon.

The article discusses laws to prevent threat of orbiting debris to spacecraft and satellites. Topics discussed include extension of the Convention on International Liability for solving the problem, modern space law, steps taken by international community to address the issue, and drafting of the major international space-law treaties by the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

Copyright of Annals of Air & Space Law is the property of McGill University, Institute of Air & Space Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of Air & Space Law is the property of McGill University, Institute of Air & Space Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of Air & Space Law is the property of McGill University, Institute of Air & Space Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of Air & Space Law is the property of McGill University, Institute of Air & Space Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of Air & Space Law is the property of McGill University, Institute of Air & Space Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of Air & Space Law is the property of McGill University, Institute of Air & Space Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)