SPACE DEBRIS: BETWEEN UNITY AND FRAGMENTATION-RISK AS A STATIC PRINCIPLE WITH DYNAMIC OUTCOMES

摘要

This paper analyses the interrelationship between science, risk, international law and active debris removal, with the aim to contribute to the progressive development of international law. A large number of disciplines now studies space debris remediation. Broadly speaking, on the one hand, specialised scientific and technical literature provides ever-deeper insight into factual properties of debris remediation. On the other, legal and policy scholarship attempt to analyse, define and qualify the issue with proper concern for its multifaceted societal context. Although these efforts form an indispensable part of the international community's quest for effective debris governance schemes, the insights from these varied fields of inquiry are mutually integrated to only a limited degree, while significant division often remains as well within respective disciplines. Recent difficulties in achieving consensus on relevant matters within COPUOS, as well as criticisms of a perceived firewall between its two Subcommittees, are illustrative of the above dynamic - albeit in a highly politicised context. Evidently, this may pose obstacles to the creation of an informed, uniform and therefore, it is held herein, more effective regulatory regime. As part of a comprehensive analytical and theoretical framework currently under development, this paper posits the common construction of risk and its management as central to the asymptotic realisation of uniformity in standards concerning space debris and its removal. To begin, the paper analyses the theoretical connection between science and law - between scientific facts and legal facts - in combination with a look at examples from practice, including COPUOS and the IADC, as well as case law. The paper then explores scientific insights into debris remediation to uncover the proper extent of the notion of risk in this area. The risk-based perspective appears to emerge therefrom as fundamental. A next section therefore casts light on