As an emerging space-faring country, China initiated the plan of establishing an independent global navigationsystem-COMPASS/Beidou in 2006. COMPASS entails military origins and is still under military operationalcontrol. Nonetheless, the opinions on promoting the development of satellites industry issued in 2007 embodied theinclination of China to develop a civil-use based navigation system centered on COMPASS. So Compass presents apromising prospect in future civil GNSS service market, to compete with GPS, Galileo and GLONASS.However, compared to U.S and E.U, Chinese policy on Compass is yet in place. It is the right time to consider legalaspects of COMPASS because on one hand, the civilian use market deserves clear guidance and regulation, andcommercial interests are proved to be at no odds with national security on most occasions; and on the other, theinternational instrument on third party liability for GNSS service was put on the working agenda of UNIDROIT, andnational laws and policies would help China to voice its concern as a perspective stakeholder either in multilateralnegotiations or bilateral talks with service user country.The article will address the regulatory aspects of COMPASS from two angles. One originates from national spacepolicy and law. The identified legal vacuums include license procedure for augmentation providers, security concernand an appropriate State Authority is needed to be in charge of civilian use of GNSS service. The second angle isspecifically about the liability issue of GNSS service provider. Prior to the drafting of an international convention onthis issue, national laws would play a substantial role in solving the possible claims brought by ender users for themalfunction of GNSS.
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