Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Smith, Lesley Jane --- "Legal aspects of satellite navigation" [2015] ELECD 256; in von der Dunk, Frans (ed), "Handbook of Space Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) 554

Book Title: Handbook of Space Law

Editor(s): von der Dunk, Frans

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000359

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Legal aspects of satellite navigation

Author(s): Smith, Lesley Jane

Number of pages: 64

Abstract/Description:

The application of satellite information for navigation purposes (more precisely: positioning, navigation and timing, PNT) has taken great strides since GPS and GLONASS signals became easily accessible to civil users in the 1990s. The added value of such satellite information was recognized early on, in not only the aviation, but also the maritime sector. Initial observations addressed Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) largely as a system exclusively for use in aviation; accompanying considerations for introducing a suitable legal regime at that stage were primarily driven by the concerns of the aviation sector. Viewed historically, the single-state governance of the above systems has precluded the development of any international overarching unified regulatory regime for GNSS as a system. With the advent of other (GNSS) such as EGNOS/Galileo (Europe), Beidou/Compass (China), GAGAN/IRNSS (India) and MSAS/QZSS (Japan), many other applications – in other transport sectors, in time-dependent business sectors such as banking, telecommunications and energy, as well as many leisure sectors – are now beginning to use GNSS. This has revived discussions as to whether all aspects and uses of GNSS should be addressed in a single upstream, general international regime, rather than leaving each sector to regulate the use of GNSS independently. In terms of the current law, the absence of a tailor-made specific global legal framework for GNSS means that its legal parameters are driven by a maze of sector-specific international obligations (such as those under the international space treaties) and sector-specific frameworks (such as that for aviation). The application of these rules has to be viewed in relation to the individual upstream operations and downstream services of the specific sector in question. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) belong to a fast-growing field of international space activities that have become the primary method for navigation and localization around the world. The variety of GNSS applications developed over the previous decades that require precise positioning and timing in their operations and impact on almost all areas of navigation, modern logistics and numerous other fields is vast. These GNSS applications constitute an important contribution to navigation, not only from an economic perspective, but also in relation to the legal issues they raise. While not subject to any one specific set of GNSS rules, the legal issues raised through the range of operations of GNSS applications continues to attract interest. There is no one comprehensive table of answers or rules applicable to GNSS operations. This is because the characteristics of GNSS, a high-technology tool that has been developed to assist various logistical operations that take place in virtual and terrestrial terms, are hybrid. The technology forms an integral part of the services which are offered in modern communication, observation and navigation technology, with various levels of legal relations existing between those producing, operating and retailing this technology, and not least, its users. The impact and significance of GNSS is now what the development of postal and communication services represented to society in the nineteenth century, with one great exception: it is a high-impact, international system of communication and navigation, but without a single international union of states responsible for its operations.