The legal regime of outer space in light of the Law of the Sea - Ocean Sustainability in the 21st Century - page 394

matter of fact, the concepts of exploration and use in the OST are extensively understood to
cover all current civil uses of space. The term 'exploration' is usually intended to relate to
an activity with scientific purpose, notwithstanding that the difference between the explor-
ation and research activity may not necessarily be a coincidence. Exploration and scientific
research are different activities which may overlap to a limited extent, but exploration is a
more general term which may or may not include scientific research (Hobe, 2009 ) .
As far as the uses of outer space are concerned, these include both non-economic and
economic; the commercialization of space activities falls into the latter category, also in the
light of subsequent practice and the 1996 Declaration on International Cooperation in the
Exploration and Use of Outer Space for the Benefit and in the Interest of all States, Taking
into Particular Account the Needs of Developing Countries.
Furthermore, the draft version of the OST as a supplementary means of interpreting
the Treaty, confirms this wide interpretation of the meaning of the term, and this opinion is
widely supported (Hobe, 2007 ) .
With regard to the activities of exploration and use, it has to be stressed that there is
a different meaning of the term 'exploration' under Part IX of UNCLOS, which includes
exploitation in the definition of the activities in the area and does not include the regime of
marine scientific research, for which a separate regime is established under Article 143 of
UNCLOS. In this context, scientific research enjoys an autonomous status in respect of ex-
ploration and exploitation of resources, which are regulated by the whole of Part XI, while
exploration is connected with commercial interests.
In this regard, in the context of space law, the common benefit clause and its interpret-
ation are subject to debate, which is centred on the issue of 'whether the benefit must be
sharedinapracticalsense,perhapsincludingtechnological transfer,orwhethertherequire-
ments are met simply by the activities being beneficial in a generalized way' (Lyall and
Larsen, 2009 ). The former interpretation discourages space-faring countries and private in-
vestors from risking resources in space activities, while the latter, which should be read in
the light of the significant impacts and spillover deriving from the application of techno-
logy developed and knowledge gathered in the context of space programmes, discriminates