Earth Observation, the Environment, Space, and Remote Sensing Law in the Pacific Rim: Won-Hwa Park

June 21, 2010 at 2:55 pm | Posted in Blogcast, Space Law | Leave a comment

by P.J. Blount with the blog faculty

Prof. Won-Hwa Park, Korea Aerospace University, presented “Legal Aspects of Reducing Green House Gases Emitted by Aircraft Registered in Korea: A Ripple Effect of EU Initiatives.”

Park started by discussing the effects of aircraft emissions on the global environment. He said that to this end, states had negotiated the Kyoto Protocol to regulate 6 green house gasses worldwide. He also noted that the percentage of aircraft emission is on the rise.

He then discussed international regulation. He stated that the Kyoto protocol does address aircraft emissions, but only for domestic flights. He stated that the European Union had issued EU Directive 2008/101/EC in order to reduce greenhouse emissions. He stated that this directive had a long arm effect that it regulated any flight originating in or going to the European Union, which effectively regulates emissions on many non-EU airlines.

He stated that Korea recently had embraced many new initiatives for reducing greenhouse emissions, including the adoption of a new environmental law. However, he stated that the extraterritorial effect of the EU directive could be damaging to Korea and have a discriminatory effect when applied to similar countries.