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von der Dunk, Frans --- "European space law" [2015] ELECD 250; in von der Dunk, Frans (ed), "Handbook of Space Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) 205

Book Title: Handbook of Space Law

Editor(s): von der Dunk, Frans

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000359

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: European space law

Author(s): von der Dunk, Frans

Number of pages: 64

Abstract/Description:

In view of the manifold efforts at European institutionalized cooperation and integration, including in the context of space, this continent has a special place, and increasingly other regions in the world are considering the establishment of international organizations to serve as similar platforms for cooperation of sovereign states in outer space and space activities. This special place is mainly reflected in two, originally separate, developments. On the one hand, there is the key role of the European Space Agency (ESA) as the scientific, technical and operational organization pooling resources and integrating space programmes of member states. On the other hand, there is the more recent role of the European Union in regulating certain areas of the space sector – notably satellite communications – and driving the establishment of such European flagship programmes as Galileo and Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), now redubbed Copernicus. More recently, the ESA and the European Union have gradually been converging in terms of directing European space policy, which results in a number of new legal issues related to their proper alignment, cooperation and perhaps even integration. Especially the respective industrial and procurement policies are principally at variance with each other, where the different focus but largely – though not completely – identical membership, as well as the constant tug-of-war within the European Union between European jurisdiction and competences and national jurisdiction and competences present additional legal problems of an inter-organizational nature. If the self-imposed isolation of both the United States and the Soviet Union following the First World War – though for entirely different reasons – still allowed Europe to harbour some illusions, the Second World War made it clear for all to see: the leading role of Europe in global politics had come to an end. The World Wars and the economic depression in between had ravaged the continent, given rise to untold atrocities and hardships, and morally questioned such concepts as nationalism, military power and colonialism – it was time to start anew and, hopefully, build a better Europe, from different moral, social, political and economic foundations, with international cooperation and fundamental attention to human rights replacing nationalistic and antagonistic scrambles for resources and political and economic power. Thus, the post-Second World War era in Europe saw a fundamental move towards integration of the nation-states on many levels. Only the United Kingdom, as a co-victor of both wars with its globe-spanning colonial empire seemingly still intact and for the remainder trusting in its ‘special relationship’ with the Anglo-Saxon amongst the two new superpowers, for a number of decades remained rather aloof from such developments.