National space legislation: A dire need for Pakistan

Abstract

The world is advancing at a great pace in space related activities. Space use has expanded, pushing more and more countries and private commercial operations towards launching different projects. Space agencies across the world are playing a progressively vital role in different activities such as environmental management, meteorology, communications, navigation, resource surveying, global positioning and disaster monitoring etc. Space science and research has tremendous potential and can be developed for solutions of problems. Remote sensing, a satellite and aircraft-based sensor technology used to spot and categorize objects on Earth, can be used in Earth Science disciplines such as geography, ecology, and land surveying etc. Based on these useful applications of remote sensing, we propose that this technology may be used for dispute resolution of the land demarcations and fragmentation issues. Many countries have already entered into all the five space treaties and are taking further steps to consolidate their respective space law and policy. It is required that the government of Pakistan together with the national space agency work on formulating an effective space legislation for e country.