Earth Observation, the Environment, Space, and Remote Sensing Law in the Pacific Rim: Steven Freeland

June 18, 2010 at 1:59 am | Posted in Blogcast, Space Law | Leave a comment

by P.J. Blount with the blog faculty

The next presentation of the day was given by Prof. Steven Freeland, Professor of International Law and Associate Head of the School (Research), School of Law, University of Western Sydney. His presentation was titled “Sensing a Change? The Re-Launch of Australia’s Space Policy and Some Possible Legal Implications.” He started with an overview of Australia’s early rich space heritage. He pointed out that Woomera was founded in 1949 and its use as a launch site led to Australia being and early leader in rocketry. Additionally, Australia was a founding member of UNCOPUOS and was the fourth country in the world to accomplish indigenous launch capabilities. He said that this heritage led significant interest by the private sector in the late 1990s to base commercial launches in Australia. This directly resulted in the Australian Space Activities Act, which was the world’s sixth domestic space law.

However, according to Freeland, Australia lost its focus on space. The Space Activities act was developed around a policy based on proposed development of launch services market, which was to capture 10% of the launch services market. He said in the meantime that Australia had captured none of this market. The act deals primarily with launches and returns and has a high degree of technical detail.

As a result of Australia’s failure to develop its own space capabilities, he stated that Australia has developed a dependency on other countries for access to space capabilities. He said this is particularly true in the area of national security. He said that Australia has national security concerns in a variety of interests including regional security, power shifts in the Asia Pacific region, terrorism, and the emergence of military and space capabilities of regional neighbors. He said that Australia needs access to these capabilities for things such as agricultural planning, climate change, and disaster relief, among others.

He stated that there was a need for Australia to adopt a comprehensive space policy, which has been historically poorly articulated. He said that the development of a new policy had been plagued by a lack of political will and a lack of funding among other things. He said though that the nature of space is changing and dependence on space capabilities will continue to rise which raises questions of how to satisfy this demand, how to fund these needs, and what laws will be required.

In Australia, Freeland said there were signs of change such as a new Senate Committee report titled Lost in Space which states the need to set a new direction for space activities; to formulate policy; to coordinate space activities; to balance between industry and governmental involvement; to focus on niche areas; to establish a Space Policy Unit; to support the establishment of a national space agency; and to assess becoming more closely linked with international space activities. Significantly this report stated that the “most important commercial aspect of space for Australia is use of satellites for Earth Observation.” Additionally, Freeland pointed to a Department of Defense White Paper titled “Force 2030” (released April 2009). This white paper highlights the need for greater self reliance, but also the need to maintain existing alliances; the need for “whole of enterprise (Government) approach”; and the need to adapt to changes in the Asia Pacific region. He stated that the government ios looking specifically to enhance its Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR), and that there is a priority on attaining Australian national remote sensing satellite.

Finally he addressed the possible legal implications and requirements. He argued that there was a need to upgrade existing space law in order to enhance its relevance to changing policy and national priorities. He said, specifically, that new laws would be needed to address areas such as remote sensing, communications, government-private partnerships, the incorporation intergovernmental agreements and cooperation, the establishment of specialized agencies, the establishment of a national space agency, the establishment of incentives to industry to enhance capacity building, and control and dissemination of information.