With the advent of commercial space travel and an expanding space economy, the need to understand, interpret and shape the laws governing space activities will become increasingly important. The fundamental principles of international space law date back to the 1960s and have expanded in scope with space exploration. Space exploration and the space economy are changing though, and the relevance of space law is becoming more important. NASA's recent budget speech highlighted both the increasing level of co-operation amongst the space agencies of nation states and also the larger role being played by private enterprise, with NASA contributing to the budgets of several commercial space operations. With companies such as EADS Astrium, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic planning commercial space flights in the near future, the laws relating to such activities will come under the spotlight. For example, looking at it from a UK perspective, does the Outer Space Act 1986 need amending to permit manned space flights from the UK? Virgin Galactic's President, Will Whitehorn, has been urging Lord Drayson the present Space Minister to clarify the Act and grant Virgin Galactic a license to launch their SpaceShipTwo rocket from RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. The Act confers broad powers on the Space Minister who can grant licenses in respect of "any activity in outer space" though manned space travel is not explicitly mentioned. Commercial spaceplane operations will also give rise to an increasing number of satellites and experiments being put in to Earth's orbit as a number of the operations see their re-usable spacecraft as cost effective ways to put objects into orbit. What laws apply to governing who can put what into space, and who cleans up the debris of defunct satellites and equipment still orbiting Earth? These are the types of question that law students at the University of Sunderland will soon be able to consider with the launch of a space law option as part of its undergraduate law degree.
Viv Kinnaird, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law at the University of Sunderland is delighted that the new module has been validated to begin in the new academic year 2010. She said: “Our law degree already attracts huge praise for the quality of its teaching and the outstanding experience students enjoy.
“The space law module illustrates our commitment to deliver a distinctive law degree. It is a fascinating topic which many students will benefit from studying. Their motivation and engagement, in our experience, translates directly into positive results.”
Ben Middleton, pictured, will teach the subject to University of Sunderland law students. He said: “It’s great that Sunderland is leading the way in the UK for space law as part of an undergraduate law degree. We expect it to be an extremely popular module.”
Law lecturer Chris Newman will lead the space law module. He said: “This is a hugely exciting area which, despite being a relatively young aspect of law, is set to grow significantly in the future. Its relevance across commercial, company, property, environmental, intellectual property and IT practice sectors means it offers valuable knowledge in a fascinating area.”
The space law module will sit along other distinctive modules for year three LLB students at Sunderland.
It seems that its not just the law module that is rising sky high. Sunderland's reputation for law is rocketing too, having achieved a number of prestigious recognitions. Sunderland was named as the best new University in the country for studying law by The Guardian in 2008. Law at Sunderland was also ranked first in the UK for student satisfaction by the Times University Guide 2008. It has just been ranked first in the UK in the 2009 National Student Survey for five of seven aspects of final year programmes.
Space law will be taught at the University of Sunderland as part of the LLB undergraduate degree from Autumn term 2010
