Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
nuclear weapons and satellites for reconnaissance, were also crucial in the rejection of the
legal approach of air law, which would have imposed restrictions to the military uses of
outer space. On the other hand, aviation was unable to maintain the control exercised by
individual states on space areas, which made a comparison with air law useless.
It is noteworthy that since the launch of the first Sputnik, no state had objected to
the flying over of satellites above its own territory. The effect of this acquiescence was
that states did not require authorization for satellites to orbit above their territory. This pre-
sumed the establishment of a free common area, not subject to national jurisdiction, there-
fore the freedom to use outer space.
It has rightly been noticed that '[t]he absence ofany objection from other States meant
that the orbiting of satellites around the Earth was not a privilege but a right given to all na-
tries on the segments of their respective overarching geostationary orbits was issued in the
Bogotá Declaration. However, it provoked strong opposition by other states.
2
Essentially, the debate concerning the analogical approach with air law ended in 1961,
when the government of the Soviet Union accepted some preliminary key issues embod-
ied by United Nations Resolution 1721 A (XVI) (International Cooperation in the Peaceful
Uses of Outer Space, 12 December 1959), followed by the Declaration adopted by Resolu-
tion 1962 (XVIII). Resolution 1721 stated for the first time that the activities carried out in
outer space and celestial bodies should be in compliance with international law, including
the Charter of the United Nations, and proclaimed the freedoms of exploration and use for
peacefulpurposesinouterspaceandcelestialbodies,whicharenotsuitablefornationalap-
propriation (typical space activities are the launch of satellites, experiments in outer space,
invention in outer space, production of satellite data in outer space or on the Earth, broad-
casting activities, Earth observation, and the use of intercontinental ballistic missiles and of
anti-satellite weapons. Cf. Hobe,
2009
). Such basic principles were definitively provided
for by the 1967 OST, in particular by Article I.2, and have fundamental implications for the
legal regime of outer space.
