The Legal Status of Outer Space and Relevant Issues: Delimitation of Outer Space and Definition of Peaceful Use
![handle is hein.journals/jrlsl11 and id is 97 raw text is: THE LEGAL STATUS OF OUTER SPACE AND RELEVANT ISSUES:
DELIMITATION OF OUTER SPACE AND DEFINITION OF PEACEFUL USE
Bin Cheng*
1. Issues requiring wider discussion
Insofar as the legal status of outer space is concerned, there are two issues regarding
which the present development of the law gives rise to grave anxiety. They are: (a) the
delimitation of the boundary between airspace and outer space, and (b) the definition
of the term peaceful, particularly as used in Article IV (2) of the 1967 Treaty on
Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space,
Including the Moon and Celestial Bodies (hereinafter the 1967 Space Treaty),, and
Article 3 (a) of the 1979 Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and
Other Celestial Bodies (hereinafter the Moon Treaty).2 The current development, if
unchecked, can produce serious consequences in many fields of international law. It,
therefore, deserves wide attention and discussion, which should not be confined merely
to the specialists.3
2. The legal status of outer space
From the physical, geophysical or cosmophysical point of view, one hopes that it is
not disputed that rising from the surface of the earth, one finds one is first in the earth's
atmosphere (airspace) before gradually leaving it to reach outer space, wherein are to be
found at various distances from the earth the (earth's) moon and other celestial bodies.
2.1 Territorial delimitation a basic premise of international law
When it comes to discussing the legal status of outer space, it is well to recall, in the
first place, the following words of Judge Max Huber in the Palmas Island Arbitration
(1928) between the Netherlands and the United States of America. Notwithstanding
the anti-historical school's references to ancestral worship in regard to precedents,
these words remain perfectly valid today:
The development of the national organisation of States during the last few centuries
and, as a corollary, the development of international law, have established this principle
of the exclusive competence of the State in regard to its own territory [national territory]
in such a way as to make it the point ofdeparture in settling most questions that concern
international relations .../T]erritorial sovereignty belongs always to one, or in
exceptional circumstances to several States, to the exclusion of all others. The fact that
Professor of Air and Space Law, University of London.
118 U.S.T. 2410; T.I.A.S. 6347; 610 U.N.T.S. 205, U.K.T.S. No. 10 (1968) and Cmnd. 3519.
'U.N. Doc. A/34/664, 18 INTL. LEGALMATERIALS 1434 (1979).
3On the dangers of compartmentalized learning and knowledge, see Brownlie, Problems of
Specialisation. in B. CHENG (ed.), INTEIRNATIONAL LAW: TEACHING AND PRACTICE 109 (1982).
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The Legal Status of Outer Space and Relevant Issues: Delimitation of Outer Space and Definition of Peaceful Use
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