Current Issues Being Discussed in Space Law
Merve Erdem BurgerSince the beginning of the space era, space activities have been varied, and private actors have started to become involved. This development over the years has raised new legal questions, which could have not possibly been foreseen during the enactment of the United Nations space treaties. Therefore we see a lack of regulations or nonbinding soft law instruments related to developing space activities. In this work, I introduce some of the legal issues being discussed in the space law community and ask what the problems are, how the UN space law treaties would address these problems and what should be done to overcome the legal problems. It is not possible to treat all of the legal discussion here, therefore I pick some of the hot topics such as space debris, space tourism, space mining, and Mars colonization.
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