the case for an international registry of space resource activities: current perspectives

Paper number

IAC-19,E7,5,5,x51344

Author

Dr. OLAVO DE OLIVEIRA BITTENCOURT NETO, Brazil, Catholic University of Santos

Year

2019

Abstract

The present paper addresses the benefits of creating an international registry regarding space resource activities, stablished multilaterally, capable of promoting legal certainty to any priority rights granted to operators as well as of limiting the potential of relevant international disputes.
Based on the records of the Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group, one of the most sensitive issues related to space resource activities, as far as the legal framework is concerned, is indeed the procedure for attribution, to either public or private operators, of priority rights related, for instance, to search and recovery of space resources. Those rights are to be provided in accordance with applicable provisions of Space Law, and may be subject, concurrently, to national and international regulatory regimes.
The existence of national registries, related to space resource activities, are naturally expected to be increasingly developed throughout the years, arranging relevant criteria for attribution of priority rights through domestic guidelines. Nevertheless, the existence of multiple, competing national registries, designed as to reflect local interests, may, as a matter of fact, lead to avoidable, undesirable and possibly hazardous conflicts of jurisdiction.
As such, the motives for designing an international registry, founded on multilateral arrangement, should be carefully considered by the global community. Aspiring for universal standards, such registry may provide specific regulation on time-frame allocation and geographic area for space resource mining and harvesting, while acknowledging the particularities of the activity in question.
In order to contribute to the orderly, sustainable development of space resource activities, such an international registry should also incorporate a dispute resolution mechanism, as well as technical coordination services, through effective mechanisms openly and readily available to the parties, for the benefit of all.

Abstract document

IAC-19,E7,5,5,x51344.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

(absent)