Consumer Protection and the Limitation of Liability in the National Regulation of the Space Tourism Industry – Lessons from EU Law
- Paper number
IAC-05-E6.3.06
- Author
Ms. Zeldine OBrien, Trinity College, Ireland
- Year
2005
- Abstract
With the announcement of Richard Branson’s plan to develop a space tourism business within the present decade, it appears that the promise of reusable launch vehicles - of providing access to space for many people, rather than the select few - is about to be fulfilled. The domestic legal regulation of the industry is a matter of increasing importance for States. As the industry continues to show its potential for development, states are being compelled to develop new law or rethink their existing domestic space law regime. Critical to the development of a domestic regime governing space tourism is the issue of liability. This is in part owing to the present international space law regime. Articles VI and VII of the Outer Space Treaty 1967 and the article II and III of the Convention on International Liability caused by Space Objects 1972 impose on states international responsibility for all national activities and liability for damage sustained as a consequence of those activities. But the issue of liability is also critical during the pioneer stage of an industry, where the allotment of the burden of liability can have a chilling effect on entrepreneurs and their financial backers, as well as limit the development of existing operators. These two factors combine to tempt states to impose extensive liability limitation clauses in space carriage contracts. However, a distinction must be drawn between payloads. The carriage of goods, such as satellites, and the carriage of persons both involve different considerations. In the case of the latter, given the potential imbalance between the parties to the contract, limitations on liability to protect the industry must be balanced by the countervailing consideration of consumer protection, in this case, of the space tourist. It is both valuable and instructive to examine how the law has attempted to achieve this balance in other service industries and to examine whether such laws should be extended to apply to the space tourism industry, if they do not already have the potential to apply as they are. In the European Union, there are a number of instruments that strike a balance between competing interests which have the potential to apply to actors within the space tourism industry. These instruments relate to issues such as contractual terms, e.g. exemption clauses, the duty to provide information to consumers, and liability. The primary instruments of interest include Council Directive 93/12/EEC on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts, which may operate to limit the scope of exemption clauses made by suppliers of the service, the Directive on Liability for Defective Products 85/374/EEC, which can impact of the producers of space objects and in doing so, the insurance industry, the Distance Selling Directive 97/7/EC which will affect space tour operators within the European Economic Area and Council Directive 90/314/EEC on package travel, package holidays, package tours. The potential application of these instruments to those in the space tourism industry has great importance for Member States that do not already have a domestic space law regime, for example, Ireland. The balance these instruments strike, the scope of their application and the advantages and disadvantages of their application to a space tourism industry in the EU and in Member States, both with and without a domestic space law regime, will be considered
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-05-E6.3.06.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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