In 1967, 112 nations signed the Outer Space Treaty, which laid the foundations of international space law. There are no known cases of people accused of committing a crime in space. Nobody knew when or where any of these pieces of space debris would fall, so it was a relief that none of them crashed to the ground or hurt anyone. The functions of COPUOUS include exchanging information on space, monitoring what governmental and non-governmental organizations do in space, and promoting international cooperation.
The concern was that the space-armed parts of the system would violate the Outer Space Treaty. Although there are treaties that have been signed voluntarily by many nations, technological advances mean that private companies can now participate in space exploration, and these entities may not be covered by some of the existing treaties (depending on the legal interpretation that is made of them). A year after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the United Nations General Assembly created an Ad Hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOUS). Should that happen, the current space law provides a fairly good framework for dealing with such an event.
For the past 50 years, most of the people who have flown to space have been representatives of the governments of their countries, such as NASA astronauts or Russian cosmonauts. Nations that carry out space activities have accepted a variety of policies and treaties related to space exploration activities. In 1960, the International Institute of Space Law, a non-governmental organization, was created to promote international cooperation in the process of drafting space laws. The treaty makes it very clear that governments are responsible for what their commercial companies and private entities do in space.
While launch providers, satellite operators and insurance companies are concerned about the problem of space debris because of its effect on space operations, space sustainability advocates argue that the space environment has value in and of itself and is at much greater risk of harm than people on Earth. This treaty, which was signed in 1967, was agreed upon through the United Nations, and today it remains the “constitution of outer space”. Under these laws, your country wouldn't even need to prove that someone had done anything wrong if a space object or its components caused damage to the Earth's surface or to normal aircraft in flight. The United Nations describes this committee as the focal point where international entities negotiate how to use space peacefully.
Since space is an area with no defined boundaries, there are many questions about the legal jurisdiction of spaceships that orbit the Earth and other celestial bodies.
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