Launch activities performed by private entities deal with a complex
legal environment. The Space Treaties provide a general liability
framework. Launch participants are subject to regulatory or
institutional control, and to domestic liability laws. Specific
contractual practice has developed due to insurance limitations, the
inter-participants' waivers of liability and claims.
This book synthesizes information on the norms of play, to allow the
grasp of their relative weight and interactions in the assessment of
liability risk for launch activities. It reveals a legal framework
presently lacking sufficient predictability for an efficient liability
risk management:
- the waivers of liability suffer weaknesses as do all such clauses, and
lack uniformity and reliability; and
- the Space Treaties contain ambiguous terms preventing predictable
determination of the States responsible for authorizing and
supervising launch activities and for damage compensation, and do not
reflect the liability of launch operators.
This book offers suggestions of new approaches for:
- harmonizing waivers of liability to improve their consistency,
validity and flow-down; and
- improving the Space Treaties for their implementation to
non-governmental launch activities.
In the launch community, the need for lawmaking is less compelling than
in fields such as aviation. Nevertheless, adjustments to the present
framework are proposed through model clauses and an international
instrument, for further thinking and contribution by those sharing the
opinion that creative lawmaking is needed now to prepare for tomorrow's
endeavors.
