Published papers

he American Society of International Law and Setsuko Aoki © 2019. This essay compares the national space legislation of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ROK), outlining the reasons behind the legislation and then explaining what it authorizes, the jurisdiction it asserts, and the conditions it imposes on nongovernmental space activities. The essay also compares the compensation available to victims in case of damages and governmental indemnification payments to protect victims and the space launch industry in Japan and the ROK. Differences in industry policies and dates of enactment help to account for variations among these states. However, the comparative analysis suggests that the domestic legal conditions across Asia’s three spacefaring nations are similar to those found worldwide. The essay focuses on China, Japan, and the ROK because they are Asia’s most advanced space powers, equipped with their own launch sites, launch vehicles, and domestic satellites. India draws a lot of policy attention, but I exclude it from the analysis because India does not yet have national acts or ministerial licensing measures.1 I also exclude the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). While technologically capable, the DPRK has been prohibited from engaging in “any launch using ballistic missile technology” since 2009, when the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1874 in the wake of the DPRK’s second nuclear test. Considering the various sanctions that are in place, the DPRK probably also cannot lawfully procure the launch of its satellites from a foreign launch provider.2.

© 2018 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved. This article studies five category of malicious cyber activities against space assets in order to assess to what extent the existing international telecommunications law and space law address them and identify which rules are lacking to effectively solve such incidents. Five category of such activities include to jam, hijack, hack, spoof, and rob the control of telemetry, tracking and control (T&C) of a satellite, a kind of anti-satellite (ASAT). More specifically, he following five cases are studied: (i) Iranian intentional jamming of the Eutelsat satellite solved in the ITU/RRB; (ii)a terrorist organization, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam hijacking an Intelsat-12 satellite solved by diplomatic negotiations between the Sri Lankan and US Governments using law enforcement under ITU regime; (iii) allegedly Chinese hacking of US NOAA's information systems; (iv) Iranian spoofing of the NPT/GPS signals to guide a US/CIA's RQ-170 UAV into the Iranian territory; and (v) allegedly Chinese taking control of US NASA's Landsat-7. Tentative conclusions are that it can be said that international telecommunication laws including those under the ITU provide necessary legal mechanisms on which reasonable solutions is attained when “harmful interference” is conducted by a nongovernmental entity. To better solve the conflicts between States in this regard, emerging space law norms relating to TCBM and the pursuit of the consultation in case of the “potentially harmful interference” may help. The remaining and thorny issues include that cases (iii), (iv) and (v) which need careful examinations of the UN treaties on outer space including Articles VI and IX of the Outer Space Treaty, and customary international law of responsibility.