Abstract
During 2011, the Space Law Committee of the International Law Association (ILA) focused a good part of its efforts on discussing state-of-the-art advances in the field of space debris. At the same time, its members followed the presentations made by states at the fiftieth session of the Legal Subcommittee (LSC) of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), which was held from 28 March to 8 April in Vienna, Austria. Another important contribution on the matter was made by the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) at its fifty-fourth Colloquium on the Law of Outer Space, which was held on 3-7 October in Cape Town, South Africa, where participants addressed space debris issues from a strong inter-disciplinary platform. Further and substantial developments are expected for 2012. In the first place, the presentations to the LSC of COPUOS at its fifty-first annual session will include reports on domestic measures taken in compliance with the 2007 COPUOS Guidelines on Space Debris Mitigation. Just as important will be the proposals and recommendations to be submitted by the ILA Space Law Committee in its fifth report to the seventy-fifth conference of this institution, which is to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 26-30 August 2012. In fact, one of the chapters of the report addresses space debris in a new light observing that, since the COPUOS Guidelines on Space Debris Mitigation are not binding and are only applied on a voluntary basis, this system does not seem to be strong enough given the increasing amounts of commercial space activity. Consequently, space debris risks are increasing at a similar pace. Furthermore, and as noted in previous reports for this yearbook, it remains a matter of concern that these guidelines were developed with no involvement whatsoever by the LSC of COPUOS and that they were not adopted by consensus at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in 2007. Likewise, but indeed less clear, is the issue of space debris caused by military satellites, and this issue remains unresolved.
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