22 September 2010 | CIL Seminar Series

Singapore’s international obligations under United Nations Space Treaties

Introduction

Since the 1960s, the United Nations has adopted five multilateral treaties that form the foundations of international space law. Of them, Singapore has ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the 1968 Rescue Agreement and the 1972 Liability Convention, and has signed but not ratified the 1976 Registration Convention.

With a significant increase in Singaporean commercial and scientific space activities on the horizon, such as the upcoming launches of X-Sat in 2010 and ST-2 in 2012, not to mention the Singaporean ownership of domestic and foreign satellite operations, it is timely to revisit the international legal obligations that Singapore has under the treaties to which it is a party and consider what domestic and regulatory steps are necessary or prudent for Singapore to adopt to fulfill these obligations.

About the Speaker

Dr Lee has a PhD in International Law from Murdoch University (Perth), an LLM in International Law from the Australian National University (Canberra) and a BA(IntSt)(Hons) and LLB(Hons) from the University of Adelaide. He is completing a second PhD at the University of Cologne (Germany). He is a director of the International Institute of Space Law, a fellow of the Commercial Law Association of Australia and a member of the space law or international law committees of the International Law Association, the International Bar Association and the Law Council of Australia.

A former university lecturer in international law and commercial law for 8 years, Dr Lee has also worked in commercial practice in 1998 and specialises in the practice of commercial law, international law and space law, having acted for firms in various aerospace sectors.

He has published over 40 articles on space law, technology law, commercial law, constitutional law and international law. He has also presented over 50 papers at various international conferences, including the United Nations Workshops on Space Law and the annual Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space. He was awarded the Diederiks-Verschoor Medal in 2002 and the Distinguished Service Award in 2005 by the International Institute of Space Law.

He has three upcoming books: the first on Australian commercial space law and practice, a second on the economics and law of mining asteroids and a third on cases and materials in space law.

The paper will discuss the international obligations imposed under the treaties signed by Singapore and how they may affect Singapore’s existing and imminent space activities. It would then go on to discuss the options available to Singapore to implement or fulfil these obligations through a comparative study of the domestic and regulatory responses of other countries, including some in Asia.

Presentation

To download Dr Lee’s PowerPoint presentation in PDF format, please click here.