NEW PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE COOPERATION IN REGARD OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRIVATE HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT

摘要

This paper will mainly discuss new perspectives in international administrative cooperation, using the example of launching authorizations. These perspectives are opened by the convergence of two facts. The first is the very large field of national regulations on launching authorizations: they are intentionally large, so as to avoid the launching States seeing their responsibility committed by giving a mean of control to other States. The second fact is the development of private human spaceflight, which implies an intensification of space activities and thus an increase of requests for authorization. As one of the characteristics of the space sector is that it is multinational, it will be necessary to look at the question of multi-authorizations and the possible ways to improve the system by simplifying procedures. The first objective of this paper is to describe the present situation with regard to launching authorizations and report on the legal situation of multinational space operations. It will be followed by an exploration of present and possible means of simplification on improvement of complex situations. This will obviously be treated from the perspective of an international organization dedicated to space activities, which could be qualified as a "substantial evolution"; the lessons learned in the aviation sector about international cooperation on authorizations delivery serve as a point of comparison. But this is not the main point: this paper will in fact focus on the "preliminary steps" of such substantial evolution in administrative cooperation that is the present legal means of cooperation, their usefulness and their limits. After the studying of the ways of achieving procedural harmonization, the principal question which this paper will try to answer is that of the eventual possibility of mutual recognition of launching authorizations.