For many of us, outer space is the stuff of sci-fi movies or star-gazing.
For Ram Jakhu, LLM’78, DCL’83, it’s the focus of his research in an area he acknowledges is largely unknown to those outside the academic community — space law.
Jakhu, the director of McGill’s Institute of Air and Space Law, is spearheading two international projects that tackle weighty topics, such as the rules that apply to the military use of outer space and the growing problem of space debris.
Space-based technology plays a key, behind-the-scenes role in our daily lives, influencing everything from telecommunications and GPS (global positioning system), to banking and weather forecasting.
“We can’t function as a modern society without space,” says Jakhu, who is also director of the institute’s research arm, the Centre for Research in Air and Space Law. “Take your cellphone. Can you live without a cellphone now?”
If access to outer space was interrupted or interfered with during armed conflict, the consequences could be devastating. That’s the impetus behind the McGill-led MILAMOS Project, which plans to clarify the rules that apply to the military use of outer space.
Through a series of workshops, the MILAMOS Project (Manual on International Law Applicable to Military Uses of Outer Space) is bringing together top experts in international law governing the use of force, international space law and international humanitarian law, says Jakhu, who chairs the project’s management group.
In essence, he says, “we are trying to collect and identify the current rules which are applicable to the military uses of outer space.”
From there, the project’s editorial committee will edit, finalize and submit the manual for peer review.
There are ambiguities in existing international space treaties and general international law regarding their application to military uses of outer space, Jakhu says.
For example, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter entitles states to defend themselves against an armed attack. If a foreign power tries to disable your satellites, does that constitute an “armed attack?” Does the purpose of the satellites matter?
“There may be satellites, which are used for military purposes and also civilian purposes,” says Jakhu.
Existing laws – including those governing the use of force and the right of self-defense – weren’t created with space in mind. “So we are trying to see to what extent they are applicable, to what extent they’re not applicable,” Jakhu says.
There has to be a common understanding of what the law is today, he adds, so countries can negotiate.
Jakhu hopes his group’s work will help countries to frame those negotiations. “Hey, [here] are gaps, [here] are problems, these are the things which we need to change.”
The project won’t deal with what the law should be, but rather with what the law already is, he says. And the aim is to be as neutral as possible with a consensus reached with scholars from around the world.
The end result will be called the “McGill Manual.” The project is being conducted in conjunction with the University of Adelaide’s Research Unit on Military Law and Ethics. The idea for the manual initially came from Duncan Blake, LLM’14, a former legal officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, in his master’s thesis at McGill’s Institute of Air and Space Law. (Blake is the deputy editor-in-chief of the MILAMOS Project.)
Jakhu has also been spearheading an international study on the global governance of space.
There’s nobody really in charge of the space portfolio, says Jakhu, who contends the United Nations’ Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space is losing its significance because countries don’t want to invest too much effort in it.
“We are going to be dependent more on space and the decisions should be made collectively and to do that you need to create awareness,” he says.
The study looks at the existing organizational structures, including international treaties, global space security, and satellite telecommunications, among other things. It also deals with space debris, which Jakhu calls “a very serious problem”.
There are about 1,400 operational satellites in space.
“Most of the communication satellites are in what they call a kind of doughnut around the Earth at 36,000 kilometers above the equator,” he explains.
The arc is getting very congested because different countries continue to launch satellites.
“Keep in mind once you launch the satellite it becomes dead after 15 years or so and that piece remains there,” he says of the debris, which is starting to collide with active satellites and other debris in space.
“So active satellites are being killed by dead satellites…We have already reached a tipping point – there is no point of return now. Even if humanity stops sending one satellite, this debris will degenerate itself further and further.”
The study is being published as a book (Global Governance: An International Study) and was co-edited by Jakhu and Joseph Pelton, emeritus director of the Space and Advanced Communications Research Institute at George Washington University. It drew on input from about 80 academics, experts and professionals from different space-related fields.
The study will be presented at the Fifth Manfred Lachs International Conference on Global Space Governance in Montreal in early May hosted by the Institute of Air and Space Law.
Its recommendations, which will be fine-tuned at the conference, include the need for a regulatory system – an international treaty – to contend with space debris.
But the first recommendation is that the world has to decide which single, international organization should be dealing with space.
“The United Nations is already doing [that], but it is being weakened,” Jakhu says. “It should be the opposite. It should be given more power [and] more resources so that it eventually becomes an international organization in charge of space matters.
“It’s better to strengthen what you already have rather than creating another organization. You don’t need to have another treaty if you simply beef up [the UN’s] mandate.”