Rik Hansen

Commercial uses of space and space tourism: setting the scene: Legal and Policy Aspects

Space applications have become indispensable in our modern society, as they account for an ever-expanding number of facilities of a very diverse nature all over the world. Whereas space services used to be, for a long time, primarily scientific or military in nature, commercial applications of spacefaring are rapidly accounting for the most exciting developments in the fields of space sciences, technology and law. Satellite applications facilitate the provision of such diverse services as global communication, remote sensing, climate observation, data collection, resource exploitation, transportation and space tourism. The astonishing scientific and technological progress in this respect has been made possible in large part by the enabling and, some would argue, ambiguous legal framework that has been put in place at the international level to govern space activities. The fundamental principles underpinning this legal regime are the free exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, by all States, including their nationals, and the corollary prohibition of national appropriation of outer space, by any means whatsoever, including sovereignty.1 These principles stand in stark contrast to those of the legal regime governing the airspace above the territory of States, who have complete and exclusive sovereignty over the areas directly superjacent to their land and territorial sea.2

Strategic Autonomy in EU Space Policy: A Conceptual and Practical Exploration

When asked why Europe, be it in the guise of the EU or that of ESA, should support or even undertake particular space activities in parallel with—or, formulated more negatively, in duplication of—the activities of other space faring nations and organisations around the world, one element often cited in justification is that it is strategically important that Europe establishes an autonomous set of capacities in this field. It is the objective of this contribution to shed light on the actual and possible meanings of this concept of strategic autonomy both in theory and in EU policy practice. The following section opens the enquiry by taking a closer look at the linguistic, philosophical and conceptual mechanics that operate behind this reference to autonomy, broadening the debate to include other related notions such as autarky, interdependence and non-dependence. In the third section, we examine the meaning and functioning of autonomy as a goal in the context of several other EU policy areas, with attention turning to agriculture, international trade, energy, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and, finally, space. With respect to our final objective of deriving some indications of what the quest for (strategic) autonomy can entail in the context of a nascent European space policy, we conclude that the EU’s use of the autonomy motif has evolved in such a way that it can serve as an effective tool in shaping European space policy. More specifically, it can serve as a plausible and legitimate basis for the EU to enact a sector-specific industrial policy for the space sector.