 Hello from the Stockton Center for International Law at the Naval War College. I am Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Davis and I would like to welcome you to day three of Disruptive Technologies and International Law. The first two days have already featured an impressive lineup of speakers and today will be no different. Just as a reminder, if you have a question you'd like to see posed to one of our panelists, please utilize the question and answer button at the bottom of your screen. If you see someone else's question and you wish you'd thought of it first, please go ahead and hit that like button. And that question will rise in the rankings and the moderator is more likely to pose it to the panel. Today we will largely focus on international law issues raised by space operations. However, before we travel up to outer space, we will first journey below the seas for a keynote presentation on submarine cable security and the law. At this time I would invite remarks from Professor James Kraska, the chair and Charles H Stockton Professor of International Maritime Law here at the Stockton Center. Professor Kraska, the floor is yours. Thank you Colonel Davis. We have the honor of hosting today, Mr Doug Burnett Douglas Burnett is chief counsel of the maritime administration in the US Department of Transportation. And for those who follow the law of the sea. He's one of the great minds of our time on application of the law of the sea in particular to submarine cables. He has worked in shipping transportation logistics at Squire patent bogs LLP in private practice. He's also worked on major projects for marine terminals pipelines, deep water ports offshore wind installations and what he's renowned for submarine power cables and telecommunications cables. And he's regarded as perhaps I would say the world's leading expert in this area. He was the legal advisor to the international cable protection committee, the industry group that all of the submarine cable consortia support and belong to. So he's been a practitioner at the highest levels of the government. He's been a practitioner in private practice for major maritime events and initiatives. He's also an accomplished scholar he's co edited or co authored a number of books and numerous chapters and articles. And so it's our great pleasure now to welcome Mr Burnett, the floor is yours. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much James, and I appreciate the kind introduction. Before launching into my topic, submarine cables within the context of disruptive technology and international law. I wanted to say what a pleasure it is to return to the US Naval War College. As a past student in the three courses offered to Naval Reserve officers. I have fond memories of the Peloponnesian war and the iron Chancellor Bismarck. Thanks to the thought provoking courses taught by Naval War College professors. I would like to say that my remarks this morning are my remarks and thoughts and do not reflect necessarily the views of the maritime administration or the United States government. Cables in international waters. Do not enjoy automatic protection or immunity from peacetime theft or intentional disruption or from any actions in wartime. Cables lie in the seabed at depths as much as 9,912 meters. Well, if you think that Mount Everest height is 8,848 meters. This gives you an idea of the extreme depths which cables can be laid. This record is held by the Japan Guam Australia cable, which was laid last March with a 36 terabyte capacity. Now I just wanted to take a minute since we've focused a lot on technology to talk about the cable give you a visual. I have here a section of the type of cable that would be laid on the high seas. You can see it's about the diameter of a garden hose and you have the polyurethane coating. You have the metal conductor. I mean the power involved in these cables is very small between 0.6 and 1 amp. When you consider your laptop has about 3 amps and your household circuit breaker is 17 to 20 amps. You can see it's a very small amount of power to power it. There's some small steel armor to protect what is the business end which are these fiber glass fibers roughly the filament of human hair. And it is through these fibers that at the speed of light data is transmitted in just an unbelievable torrent of quantity 24-7. Now the reason that it's so effective is it basically divides the spectrum of light. When the cables were first introduced in 1988, there was really just a black and white and then they divided the spectrum into eight lights. And lately they've been going up to 64 different colors of the rainbow with each one of those bandwidths effectively equivalent to a submarine cable. And it's all bound within that little one nautical, I mean that one garden hose diameter cable. Now that's sort of just to give you a little bit of the flavor of the technology. But after examining the role that these cables play in the worldwide telecommunication infrastructure. My discussion today proposes to review international law within the context of submarine cable history and evolution. Discuss how international law codified in both the law of the sea convention and the 1884 cable convention affects coverage of submarine cables. Provide an example of how key compromises codified in the cable convention can serve as a springboard to develop new techniques to protect cables, and to encourage scholars and policymakers to propose discuss and debate these ideas. Before we delve into international law, let's take a hard look at just how dependent nations worldwide are on submarine cables. As many may know, but often don't think about in our daily lives, submarine cables enable us to connect with family, friends, businesses, even online events such as this one. Those of you who are participating in this conference from outside the United States are receiving my voice image and any presentations via fiber optic submarine cable. Consider that without cables, we would not be unable to FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, or communicate internationally on the internet, whether by video by data or by voice. All such means of communications would stop abruptly if the services provided by the submarine cables were disrupted. Unfortunately, satellites do not serve as an effective substitute. The popular belief that modern communications are satellite driven has not been accurate since the fiber optic cable TAT 8 was laid across the Atlantic in 1988. In fact, in 2007, the year I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Submarine Cables and the Law of the Sea Convention, if all of the submarine cables connecting the United States to other nations had been cut using every single satellite in the sky, it would have resulted in only about 7% of US traffic having been restored. If we did a similar analysis today, that small 7% would even be a smaller amount. The question is why? Well, because the capacity of a single trans-oceanic cable has increased by a factor of 100,000 in 25 years. About 50 of these cables, as I indicated each the diameter of a garden hose, provide the United States with over 99% of its international communications. Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and a host of other nations are similarly situated in their reliance on submarine cables. Submarine cables connect land-based server farms across the globe, underscoring that in effect the cloud is really beneath the sea. Submarine server farms may be heading to sea, as demonstrated by Microsoft's Experimental Submerged Data Center, which was housed in a sealed storage capsule that was retrieved this past summer from the seafloor near Scotland's Orkney Islands. Consider the massive investment in submarine cables in the last decade by Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon. Our Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Reinhart and former commandant of the Marine Corps, General Amos Note, cyberspace in the physical form of undersea fiber optic cables carries an even greater value than shipping goods through financial transactions and information. Indeed, each day the Society for Worldwide International Financial Telecommunications, known in the banking business as SWIFT, transmits about 15 million messages to more than 8,300 banking organizations, security institutions, and corporate customers in 208 countries. Consider this statement made by Stephen Malfress when he was the Chief Information Officer with the United States Federal Reserve. When the communication cable networks go down, the financial sector does not grind to a halt, it snaps to a halt. Former Security General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, in the Oceans and Law of the Sea report, wrote, Functioning as the backbone of the international telecommunication system, submarine cables are a fundamental component of the critical global infrastructure and play a direct role in sustainable industrialization. Indirectly, they contribute to all other areas recognized as important for sustainable development. In 220, the backbone can be measured by the scope of demand on international fiber optic telecommunication cables, which seem to increase by a demand rate of 40% per year. In 2020, we're talking about 4 billion people, $4 trillion in revenue opportunities, over 25 million applications, and more than 25 billion embedded in intelligent systems, and 50 trillion gigabits of data. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Cable Protection Committee estimates that internet traffic increased between 25 and 50% between November 2019 and the early stages of the lockdown in April 2020. The Zoom video communications revenue for the quarter ending July 31, 2020, saw a 355% increase compared to the previous year. This virtual conference is making a humble contribution to Zoom's fourth quarter financial result. Given these facts, I would phrase the former UN Secretary General's words in a slightly different way. Fiber optic cables in and of themselves constitute by any standard critical international infrastructure. But understanding that truth, international scholars and policy experts will grasp the importance of the following nine facts in navigating international law and in proposing solutions to protect submarine cables. Approximately 311 separate international cable systems make up about 1.4 million kilometers of fiber optic cables laid on the world's ocean seabed. Each cable system is generally owned by separate consortiums of about four to 40 private companies or entities, and only rarely by a single company. There is no worldwide communication cable network any more than there is a worldwide airline network, rather independent individual cable systems freely cooperate and compete 24 seven year around with virtually no international governance and with what most of us perceived to be a seamless fit. The key thing here I emphasize is the world's subsea communication systems have been provided by free enterprise system at no cost to the states. Cable ships, unlike ships, I mean cables rather unlike ships are not flagged to any state, nor is the nationality of a cable a simple question. Legal ownership of a cable is logically divided among the various co owners, resulting in a legal kaleidoscope of jurisdictions and nationalities. Cable repair is organized regionally by private contract subject to no government mandates repairs are carried out strictly by contract terms and not according to any national government priority. Cable repair ships are contractually obligated to sail from their base port within 24 hours for fast repair response. About 45 cable ships operate worldwide. Half are on standby awaiting a repair call out. The other half are laying new cables. Cable ships themselves are custom built, conspicuous expensive and carry specialized crews trained at sea through Haas pipe experience. They fly diverse national flags United Kingdom, France, Marshall Island Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, China. But cable repairs are always urgent because each cable serves as a backup for other cables that need repair. When a cable is cut or broken that traffic in a fraction of a second is automatically rerouted to other cable systems to make sure that you have continuous flow of data. The environmental footprint of cables on the seabed is benign. Once a cable is laid, it is designed to remain undisturbed unless it needs repair. The manufacturer warranty of 20 to 25 years is based not on the cable, but on the optical amplifier placed every 60 to 80 kilometers in the cable. This amplifier taking advantage of a rare earth European basically juices up the light signal to magnify it and amplify it as it continues across the world's ocean. While my remarks today concentrate on fiber optic telecommunication cables, other types of submarine cables traverse with increasing frequency the world's oceans. Military cables are used for acoustic sensing sensing and anti submarine warfare. More than an estimated 1200 scientific cables provide a continuous stream of environmental data that advances our understanding of the oceans. Finally advances in technology also open the door to international electric power cables, such as the 580 kilometer high voltage direct current nor Ned cable linking Norway to the Netherlands and the plan 1000 kilometer power cable ice link between Iceland and the United Kingdom. Military power and scientific submarine cables have distinct uses and vary by design and construction, but under international law they enjoy the same rights and obligations as those fiber optic cables used for telecommunications. The growth and success of submarine cables, whatever the type are entire intrinsically tied to the protections provided to international cables under international law. That impressive growth fueled by endless ingenuity expressed in cable design installation and maintenance historically depends on the freedoms to lay and repair submarine cables under international law in an unregulated space outside of territorial seas. Another truth is that from the time submarine cables were launched in the 19th century technology disruption inflicted by third parties and resulting from natural causes posed central concerns for diplomats and ocean policymakers. The first trans-oceanic submarine telegraph cable was laid in 1866 by the entrepreneur Cyrus field. It was as revolutionary then as the internet for us was when it was launched in the 1990s. The significance of the then new technology was captured by the famed English jurist Sir Travers twist in 1880. When he wrote the preliminary question, which deserves consideration is whether the maintenance of telegraphic sea cables, which have an international importance is an interest of the highest order of states analogous to the interest of public health and of public revenue. With each nation is allowed by courtesy to protect beyond the strict limits of its territorial waters. If we look to the public services upon which telegraphic sea cables are now called upon to perform in time of peace, and that it has become the normal instrument of communication between governments and their envoys in foreign countries. That international treaties are from time to time concluded between nations of the two hemispheres through the medium of telegraphs and through the same instrumentality approaching tempests are announced in advance to Europe from America. By which great damages instruction to life and shipping may be averted that no great criminal can now hope to escape from Europe to the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean with the fruits of his crime without a telegram anticipating his arrival. And when he finds himself the captive of law at the moment when he expected to set foot upon a land of liberty. The answer to the question above stated must we think be affirmative, and there can be no doubt that the great arterial lines of telegraphs have become indispensable for the circulation of the political lifeblood so necessary to maintain the vitality of our modern international state system. If we substitute in the preceding passage fiber optic cables and email or text messages for the words telegraphic sea cables and telegram. Respectfully, we must agree with Sir Travers words that they are as relevant today as they were in 1880. Here Sir Travers affirmative to the question about the critical nature of sea cables and maintenance finds results in the pioneering 1884 international cable convention convention for the protection of submarine cables. The 1884 convention constitutes the world's first law of the sea convention. It was the product of two summers of negotiations in Paris in 1882 and 1884 that reunited, not only diplomats but also fishermen naval officers and electrical engineers, all striving to devise a legal regime that addressed about 20 years of the world's experience with the revolutionary new international submarine telegraph cables. The results is a series of compromises that formed the bedrock of modern international law and submarine cables, as reflected in the law of the sea convention and the collision regulations. Examining the evolution of how international law affects submarine cables is instructive as one considers ways to avert potential disruptions to this vital infrastructure. At that end I summarize the key compromises that are codified in the cable convention, as they provide ideas for new or updated techniques to avoid such outcomes. First, all nations in their nationals enjoy the freedom to lay and repair cables outside of what was then the three nautical mile territorial sea. Cables that damage a submarine cable because of intentional actions or culpable negligence are to be subject to criminal penalties of fines and imprisonment that are without prejudice to the cable owners right to recover civil damages. From the start, cables had been cut or damaged from fishing activity and anchor contacts, and these provisions were designed to punish and deter not only intentional but negligent actions. Under the treaty there is an exemption from criminal and civil actions if the master that damages a cable did so to save his ship and passengers. An example would be a ship losing power and being driven by wind onto the rocks on which a crew member throws out an anchor to prevent the collision with the rocks but damages a cable. If a vessel through no fault of its own snags a cable with its fishing gear or anchor, the vessel is to sacrifice its gear or anchor to avoid injury to the cable. In this case if the sacrifices made the cable owners are required to indemnify the vessel for the sacrifice gear anchor. Here the priority of the cable convention was to prevent the greater harm of communication disruption. A cable owner enjoying the freedom to lay cables can cross other cables without permission. If in the process of crossing the first laid cable that cable is damaged, the crossing cable owner must indemnify the first laid cable for the cost of repairs. If a cable ship displays day ships or night lights indicating it is engaged in laying or repairing a submarine cable, other ships are to stay one nautical mile distance from the cable and one quarter of a mile from any cable repair buoy and avoid actions that interfere with the cable laying or repair. Two provisions of the cable convention not reflected in the law of the sea convention stand out. The cable convention contains a provision that allows a party from a warship to board a vessel suspected of damaging a submarine cable. This provision was relied upon by a US Navy destroyer in 1959 to board a Soviet trawler on the side high seas to obtain evidence of that ship cutting several transatlantic cables. The convention also explicitly states that nothing in this convention affect the liberty of action of belligerence. State practice is solidly consistent with the freedom of action of belligerence against cables. And some examples would be the New York Times 1898 headline, which held right to cut cables in war, Admiral Dewey created new precedent under the law of nations in Manila Bay. In 1914, a German Navy cruiser destroyed a British cable station at Fanning Island in the Central Pacific. Britain's first naval acts of war and World War One and two were to have its ships sever telegraphic cables linking Germany to the Americas. There is one legal case where a submarine cables legal status in war was the issue. Following the Spanish American War, Great Britain brought a claim on behalf of English owners of the cable connecting Spain to its colonies that the US Navy had cut. In 1923 international arbitration tribunal ruled that while Great Britain was neutral in the war between the United States and Spain, the fact that the submarine cables transmitted military information between Spain and its colonies made these cables legitimate military targets. No compensation was owed by the United States to Great Britain. In this case, along with state wartime practice established a precedent for modern cables that proves telling, as noted by the law of the sea scholar James Kraska in a recent article, the technology of the global cable system and customary international law reflected in the United States state practice suggests that belligerent states would use or even destroy neutral submarine cables during armed conflict. Professor Kraska is right on two reasons. First, cables unlike ships have no flag to confirm their nationality. The type of cables reflects many jurisdictions such that in a global war wartime situation, it is likely that one or more of the part owners is a belligerent that alone would justify treating the cable as a legitimate military target. Second, following the logic of the 1923 arbitration case, the traffic on a modern fiber optic cable undoubtedly carries communications of one or more of the belligerence. The closely flowing gigabit rich slurry of data packages transmitted at the speed of light over modern cables contains military diplomatic government and economic data. Such traffic is transferred or switched to other cables in fractions of a second. This undeniable cable usage makes the cable regardless of nationality a legitimate military target. That's effectively scuttled the notion of a neutral cable envisioned in the rudimentary article 54 of the 1907 on a convention. Even in peacetime evidence exists that highlights noticeable gaps in submarine cable security. In November 2007 intentional sabotage of a cable landing in Bangladesh disabled communications for over a week. Cable segment thefts to place in Jamaica in 2008. In 2010 terrorists attacked a cable station disrupting a cable linking the Philippines and Japan. In March 2013 16 tons of submarine cable in the seabed between Banca Island and rail islands in Indonesia were stolen. Three men were arrested by Egyptian Coast Guard attempting to cut CME 34 cable system. And in July 2013 37.7 kilometers of cable linking Indonesia and Singapore was stolen. A personal experience dates to March 23 2007 when two ships were involved in the high seas simultaneous removal of 98 kilometers of cable from the TVH cable system and 79 kilometers of cable from the APCN cable system. Both incidents included removal of critical optical amplifiers. At the time these cables constituted Vietnam's entire cable connection to the rest of the world. The cable ship arrived on the scene and photographed one of the ships in the act of removing the cable. Indonesian Marine security teams on the cable ship declined to intervene because their orders were to provide defensive protection and not to take offensive action. The repairs took over three months because a French factory had to be restarted to produce the optical amplifier replacements. When these events were unfolding I was at a conference in Baltimore. I worked with the leadership of the International Cable Protection Committee, which included AT&T, a British telecom and Southern Cross for Australia. We quickly convened an ad hoc meeting to analyze what were unmistakable and near simultaneous high seas attacks by two separate vessels on two different cable systems. Assignments were made to contact respective national defense and security agencies. It fell to me to contact the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard. I provided telephone briefs over several days and it became apparent to me that my notifications were ending up in high level briefings. But at the end of the day no visible actions were taken. This experience underscores a telling feature of national governance of critical international submarine cable infrastructure. Many agencies own part of the submarine cable policy, but no agency is in charge. In the United States approximately 21 government agencies regulate some aspect of submarine cables. This situation, multiple agencies with no agreed lead, creates a major security shortcoming when cable systems are under attack or multiple systems are impacted by a natural disaster such as a major tsunami or earthquake. Two states that have set a modern example by selecting a single point of government contact for reporting suspected hostile acts against cables are Australia and Singapore. I hope other nations would be able to follow their lead. Although not the result of a natural disaster, a reef abrasion in July 2015 caused a cable break rupturing the island of Saipan's connectivity with the rest of the world and demonstrating the havoc that can be wrought by a technology disruption. At that time, Saipan depended upon a single fiber optic cable. Normally a single cable break would not be an issue worldwide and average of 200 cable breaks resulting from both man made and natural causes occur each year. Participating in a maintenance agreement provides prompt repair and restoration supplied by cable ships following traffic will then be rerouted in seconds so that customers experience no impact. In Saipan, however, to save expenses the cable operator did not participate in a maintenance agreement. So there was no no cable ship on standby. And in addition, the local government had allowed the backup microwave communication facilities to atrophy contingency planning, if it existed, had not been practiced by the local government and the communication company. Thus the island had greatly diminished international communications for over two months. During that time, it took to repair the cable and the cost was about $2 million. But the important thing is that during this two months airlines had to resort to visual flight rules to land. Tourism collapsed and residents were unable to use credit cards and ATMs to pay for food and other purchases at stores. Imagine the chaos, panic and disruption that would ensue if major nations experienced a similar scenario where multiple cables were cut. One writer expressed a likely impact in an article titled, forget nuclear weapons, cutting undersea cables could decisively end the war. Well respected legal scholar Robert Beckman highlights the gap in international law with respect to protecting submarine cables from intentional actions carried out beyond territorial seas. It was Professor Beckman who coined the phrase, submarine cables are the orphans of international law. He correctly notes that no applicable international treaty exists to deal with attacks on submarine cables outside of territorial seas by terrorists or gray forces. The convention for suppression of unlawful acts against the safety of maritime navigation. In the convention of unlawful acts against the safety of civilization, together known as the sewer conventions cover ships, aircraft, offshore platforms, navigational aids, but are silent on cables. Recently on October 30, 2020, there was a seizure of the tanker Navi Andromeda by a special boat squadron team of commandos in the English Channel, responding to the master's SOS because stowaways were threatening control of the vessel. And this has become a textbook case of sewer convention action. It can also serve by way of comparison as an illustration that no international law covers peacetime cable attacks outside of the territorial seas, even though few dispute how critical cables are to international economies state relations. Beckman's call to amend the sewer conventions to include submarine cables is common sense, a solution to respond to this critical need is long overdue. We find a similar situation with respect to wartime protection of submarine cables. Neither international law nor state practice affords any protection to international submarine cables. The likelihood that the law of the sea convention or the cable convention might be amended to provide such protection seems remote. Subsequent in 1866 to protect cables by treaty and wartime failed, the subsequent 1884 cable convention flatly rejected the concept. To remedy the situation a humble idea that perhaps merits further study involves according cable repair ships and exemption from attack. The navigation initiative would be modeled on the wartime protection international law for hospital ships. Cable ships already enjoy peacetime protection from navigation interference when they are laying repairing cables. To facilitate that protection, the small number of ships ensure that they are visually conspicuous by carrying special day shapes and lights. During wartime, further protection methods similar to those applied to hospital ships under international law could be devised for cable ships in terms of communications, public voyage, routing, disclosure, weapons and unmistakable ship markings. This modest step could contribute to two objectives. One, the restoration of vital fiber optic communications and two, the fostering of valid humanitarian objectives. We would argue that the challenge with this died idea is the reality previously described that modern fiber optic cables carry traffic that directly or indirectly benefits belligerence. A counter argument would be that massive attacks on submarine cables and wartime would incur the need to repair and restore communications that are critical for global stability and recovery. Either way, there are no easy answers, although the further examination of the topics discussed would yield compromises that serve to protect submarine cables and submarine cable repair ships in peacetime and wartime. I conclude by encouraging international scholars and policymakers to continue discussing and debating these ideas. Thank you very much and I'm happy to answer any questions if there's time. Thank you very much, Doug. That was fantastic. And we actually do have a lot of questions. So we'll take maybe 10 minutes or so if you're amenable, and I can pass those on. So Eric Han asks what examples of evidence have proved there are deliberate military attacks on seafloor cables, other than the, the Spanish American war example that you mentioned are there other examples that are more recent. There are no examples I would say that are more recent in terms of actual attacks. However, anyone that studies the naval orders of battle of the leading peer competitors will find that the capabilities to interfere with submarine cables are well advanced. And there are many ship and submarine platforms that seem to be designed for that one single purpose. Thanks for that. And I know in 1914 I believe the Germans hit a ground station landing station for cables. But that's right there. There's these vessels that appear to be either submarines or surface ships that appear to be specially built just for that purpose. The second question is from Professor Wolf on Heineck. And so he has some interesting thoughts he asks in times of armed conflict, the only rule that directly applies to submarine cables of course is article 54 of the 1907 Hague regulations, but that addresses cables that are connecting occupied territory with neutral territory. So Wolf asks, isn't it about time that we abandon that rule and just exclude submarine cables, generally from being cut during times of armed conflict, even if they connect an enemy territory with the territory of other states, should we develop new law to protect them since they're such an important piece of the global infrastructure. Well, I think he's actually correct that the Hague convention of 1907 article 54 was, and if you look at it, it doesn't prohibit attacks. It just says you should only attack them if there's no other choice and compensate them after the war. It was based on the idea that you could have a neutral cable and a belligerent cable, but the way modern ownership the way modern communications are, they are constantly blurred so it's always going to be a mixed picture. And yes, I've heard many people opine that yes we should make these cables sacrosanct from any kind of military action. And all I would just say is, is good luck, trying to get the nations of the world. If you look at the deliberations in 1884 very instructive, you know I know a French American attorney because all of the travel preparatory sir in French, if you look at the debates, it's particularly between the United States Great Britain, and El Salvador, who favored that particular point. You can see that the, the the nations that were sea powers had no interest in in allowing that to happen. And they effectively put that in the treaty expressly that that treaty would have no impact on belligerence. So, they're important policy considerations and while scholars may say gosh we'll just make these safe from attack. I just think that practical realities are just daunting. I think, you know, you have to do some very modest things that's why selected perhaps protecting a cable ship as a step forward, because I just can't imagine nation states, giving up that, or ceding that particular advantage or disadvantage in wartime. Thank you for that. We have another question related to cables during our conflict from Kubo match it. And so what he is thinking of is, would you agree that an attack against submarine communications cable seems to be nearly always disproportionate to military advantage in a law firm conflict. And so in weighing the expected military advantage versus the proportionality. Would you say that submarine cables are now so important and we're so interconnected that it's very hard to overcome that test and conduct a valid strike on submarine cable. I would probably acknowledge the argument but I don't think it's it's persuasive. I know when the Royal Navy. You know the first thing they did World War one, they sent out a postal ship to cut the cables of Germany so those telegraph the cables even then in World War one and World War two, we're still critical. It was just a simple cut. The nice thing about a cable is, you don't have any direct civilian casualties, because the cable is how to see. And certainly it's meant to disrupt, but is that any different than taking out satellites which also are important for command control surveillance. Those are very likely targets. The proportionality, I can see that but once again, I think the, the ability to, you know, asymmetric way of warfare to really disarm your other adversaries economy and political system by striking a cables and there are so many ways to do it. That I think it's just going to be not a not a winning argument. Thanks for that. If we can get maybe one or two very quickly before we have a break and preserve time for the next panel. People Drozdo asked whether you're a whether you know or you're allowed to say, what was the flag state of the two ships that engaged in removing cables that connected Vietnam are you, are you allowed to tell us that. Yeah, they were Vietnamese vessels as we could piece together in the months afterwards. Vietnam had started a program to essentially recover what they wanted was copper core analog cables, which the US had laid along the coast of Vietnam during the Vietnam conflict. Because those particular cables this was before fiber optic are a lot of copper so there was money. So the idea was to employ your fishermen picking up cable. Well, having set them in motion. The Vietnamese fishermen went out and started just harvesting any cable they could come up with and disrupted the communications. So it seems like it was a government program gone haywire. And today they, the press, they picked a couple of fishermen and executed them for for doing that. That's just what you picked up in the local Vietnamese press. But that was the information that was provided from looking at new sources over the subsequent months. I think we have time for one more question so I apologize if I mispronounced the name, but Glomé de Tercer Claus from Belgium. He asks, how does Brexit or how could Brexit affect the North Atlantic cable system. I don't see it having any any impact. The one thing you'll notice when the submarine cable industry is, you know, every nation has a small number of people that work in this business. And they are working together, even companies that are just bitter rivals on land, they cooperate at sea on cable repair rerouting, because they all know that today. This company needs a favor tomorrow you're going to need a favor. So it's an amazing set of cooperation. And you know the cables link countries all over the world, and it's not a political activity. So you have cables that will land in the UK, they're not going to change. They cost the channel to France or Belgium. There are also cables that go directly to France. So if you look at a map and you know there's several of them put out by companies subtel forum and other ones, you look at a map of the world with the cables, you'll see that they'll go all over and those are going to continue, you know, regardless of, you know, political changes on land with regard to EU or Brexit, and all of those countries will want to be linked the United States and be linked to Asia and into Africa. And those connections. I mean if you think of it a cable is really a pipe through which all sorts of data for good or for bad is being just transmitted and it is the lifeblood it's that's why the issue in wartime is pretty significant because it's a perfect asymmetric way to cripple a country's economy, because we all are so vital and depend on these telecommunication cables for the well over 90% of all our information and data and video communications. Thank you for that very much. Mr Brunette we deeply appreciate your your time and your knowledge hearing it with us today. Thank you for the questions. Apologize we don't have time for all of them there are other good questions including by Christopher at hard and on a Patrick but I think we're out of time. We're going to take an abbreviated break of only about two minutes. Before we begin the next panel. And can you confirm that either Colonel Davis or Cherry, give us guidance on what our way ahead is. That's correct sir we'll take a short two minute break before launching into space operations and international next panel. Okay wonderful and thank you again Doug we hope next time it's in person and we can welcome you and everyone to the naval war college. My pleasure. Thank you again for the invitation. Welcome back everyone. Our next panel will address security and international law in the context of outer space. We are very pleased to welcome today as our moderator for this panel Mr Duncan Blake. Duncan is a senior research associate in space law and strategy at the University of New South Wales and Canberra Australia. He is a contributing editor to the Wilmer Emmanuel on international law applicable to military space activities. Duncan I hand the panel over to you. Good morning everyone and so it's a pleasure to be here. My biography is in the program if you want to know more. I'm here in my capacity as a senior research associate USW camera not in any official capacity I'm sort of obliged to say that the schedules pack. So with lots of great speakers so I'll just say that I'm a passionate practitioner of space law especially in the military context and it isn't thrilled to be here. I wish I could have joined more of the conference conference but although it's morning here it's a very different time here. But I look forward to the recordings from the conference. Space has been militarized since the first artificial object in outer space. The Nazi V2 rocket in June 1944 and Sputnik 1 in 1957 was as much a military mission as it was anything else. Nevertheless, for several decades thereafter military activities in outer space were relatively benign. That's now changed and some of our speakers may well describe how it has changed. If there's any question about whether those changes are potentially disruptive to the international legal framework with which many of you are familiar, then it's worth observing that in several nations general senior bureaucrats and even heads of state have in respect to space activities use phrases like Wild West free for all no rules. As you listen to the next three speakers questions you may want to ask yourself and perhaps ask them is whether the legal framework for outer space is is adequate to address the current and perspective space activities. And if not how are the gaps filled is a valid to draw on and legal analogies from other domains to fill those gaps. Now I'm supposed to say that there are no stupid questions but I need to tell you about two experiences that I've had. The first was when someone who later turned out to be a Flat Earth adherent, I didn't know that at the time, asked why all the satellites that have ever been launched can't be seen from the International Space Station. Would have been helpful if she declared upfront her Flat Earth beliefs that I might have known where to start or whether to start with my response but I didn't know that I was stumped. The second was shortly after I'd been introduced to some primary school students to specifically talk about space law. Apparently all they wanted to know was about the toilet on the International Space Station. So that's that's the bar that you need to beat for your questions. The good news is that you have three questions before I press you for questions. The other good news is that Dr Laura Grego who will speak first about what satellites do and about counter space weapons will probably confirm that the earth is not flat. So she'll deal with that issue up front, I hope. Professor David Koplow will speak second and will give us the basics of space law. He probably won't answer questions about the toilet on International Space Station. Major Jeremy Grunit will speak third and will provide a little strategic and political context for the grey zones in laws applicable applicable to space activities. In his day job he teaches cadets but they won't have dumb questions because they're Air Force and so they're smart. The biographies for our speakers are all in the program but I will give a short introduction for each of them before we hit play on their pre-recorded videos. So first up Laura Grego is a senior scientist and research director in the global security program at the Union of Concerned Sciences. A physicist by training she works at the intersection of science and policy on the topics of nuclear weapons, missile defense and space security. So let's hear from Laura. Okay. Thanks to the Stockman Center and to Kieran for the invitation to talk to you all. Well today in just around 10 minutes is to get you oriented to the science and technology of space operations. So I'm just going to get right to it. Objects in orbit are different from objects in space. A satellite stays in orbit more or less permanently and is different from a ballistic missile which transits space briefly. This image shows an intercontinental ballistic missile launch in yellow of around 11,000 kilometers range so sort of from North Korea to the United States. At its highest point it reaches around 1250 kilometers. The light blue circle is a circular low earth orbit at around 11,000 kilometers altitude with the satellite and the missile are traveling it quite a clip. A little bit around over seven kilometers per second or about 30 times the speed of a jet plane. Satellites are governed by a very simple equation which says that to stay in orbit an object has to have a specific speed that depends on its altitude. And keeping them up there makes them good and efficient observers of the earth, which is one of their main functions. By the same token satellites cannot hover over areas on the earth, except under very specific conditions. They'll necessarily travel above the territory of both ally and adversary. This equation shows what it takes to cover North Korea for example with satellites that have a very time sensitive mission missile defense interceptors which have to intercept a missile during its boost phase which lasts three to five minutes. You'll see that as soon as something comes into view. And because the earth rotates under the orbits, many hundreds of satellites would be needed in order to have something in place when it's required. So for a mission that is less time sensitive or could cover a wider amount of ground like a sensor mission, you would need fewer satellites. Satellites operate not only above other countries, satellites from different countries share the same physical space in orbit, no space in no prior spaces cordoned off so in this sense it is a commons. Another thing to keep in mind is that not only the satellites owner but any other observer can predict with good accuracy where the satellite will be at a future time. It's very difficult to hide in space. This is a picture of ground based optical observatory in Russia, just kind of unique looking. Most behaviors observable, although the ability to monitor space is unevenly held in some countries have more sophisticated capabilities than others. You can understand a lot about what a satellite function is by looking at it and knowing where it operates. Many satellites in low Earth orbit so about up to 2000 kilometers above Earth are Earth observers. Because the detail you can see in an Earth image improves both by getting closer to Earth and by having a larger telescope. The best reconnaissance will be done with a low flying satellite with a big mirror, like a Hubble Space Telescope pointed back at the Earth. These systems tend to be exquisite and expensive in generally the domain of governments national security programs. The commercial satellites are starting to approach these resolutions and capabilities. If precise detail isn't what you're interested in but frequently visits to look at the same area, you can use a different strategy. You can use smaller numbers of larger numbers of smaller and less expensive satellites. Like the company Planet Labs has flocks of what they call dogs, small satellites in North Orbit. Navigation signals are generally broadcast from medium Earth orbits around 10 to 20,000 kilometers altitude. Because signal strength goes weakens as a square of the distance, satellite broadcast navigation signals tend to be fairly weak when they arrive on Earth. That's why local terrestrial jamming of GPS signals can be so effective. It doesn't take large amounts of energy to overwhelm a GPS system because you're so much closer to the receiver. Also, high eccentricity orbits out here have the satellite go slowly, so eccentricity is something more oval than circular. We'll have satellites go in a long high arc and swoop down close to the Earth. If you told them just right, they'll have a long period of hanging above the hemisphere of your choice. The Soviets and then Russians use them for long dwell times over the northern hemisphere. Satellites and geostationary orbits are special. They have a period of 24 hours. So if they're positioned around the equator, they'll look stationary from the ground. This lets you, for example, broadcast signals, and the user on the ground doesn't need to move her antenna to track the satellite across the sky. Everything's fixed, and for that reason, less expensive. This is lucrative commercial real estate. Additionally, because you can see a large part of the Earth, as you can see in this image here, from a fixed perspective, you can use just a few satellites to surveil the entire Earth's surface, or most of it. This is, that's why satellites that provide early warning of ballistic missile launch and monitoring of electronic transmissions are also found out here. This is a slide of an Atlas rocket. The speeds relevant to putting something in orbit are extremely high, as I mentioned, and so it takes enormous amounts of energy to get satellites into orbit. Only a few percent of the mass of a launching racket is actually dedicated to the payload, so just right at the tip of that image. It's expensive to put things in space, traditionally 15 to 20,000 kilometers, I'm sorry, dollars per kilogram. Although this is expected to come down substantially with the advent of competitive commercial launch providers. But at the same token, once in orbit, it takes a lot of energy to slow a satellite down enough to get it out of orbit quickly. The satellites don't just drop like bombs so that intuition doesn't from air, you know, aircraft doesn't apply. So for this reason in general space operations are focused on the transmission and receipt of electromagnetic signals. So observing the Earth or sending communications rather than the transport of mass back up and down. That's why you generally don't see orbiting weapons targeting the ground and you don't see a lot of space tourism or hosting troops in space. Also for this reason, things in space tend to stay in space. When a satellite breaks up by accident negligence or by intention, the resulting pieces will tend to stay in orbit potentially for decades or indefinitely. Because even small pieces of this debris are going at high speeds, they can damage other objects. These persistent high speed pieces of debris litter the commons and pose a risk to all space users. Additionally, each piece of debris generally can be identified with its origin. So I'm going to quickly just take a walk through a few different kinds of anti-satellite weaponry. An adversary may consider an attack on any satellite and the attack may involve temporary or permanent effects. They may be stealthy or attributable. It may be difficult technologically or relatively unsophisticated. One of those is a direct ascent kinetic energy, anti-satellite technology. So this is a missile that's either from the ground or the sea or even from an aircraft that directly ascends to a satellite and runs into it and destroys it with a force of impact. Missiles that have been designed for ballistic missile defense can be repurposed to target satellites which travel on similar paths through space with similar speeds. In some cases, it's actually easier to target satellites because they are not a transient phenomenon. You can choose which time you is most auspicious for you to try your attack. Such kinetic energy distractions definitely leave enormous amounts of debris on orbit which can contribute to the self-limiting behavior by states that are invested in keeping space working into the future. So those who are invested in space don't want to put lots of debris up in there. So this is an example of a permanently destructive debris creating technically sophisticated attributable attack. Another kind of technology. So one reason that the actors are increasingly interested in other types of things are this or non-debris producing weapons. So that's why they've been looking at technologies called proximity or close approach satellites. So this is a technology that allows one user to approach the satellite of another's without that target satellites cooperation. At sufficiently close ranges, you can use relatively non-destructive methods to interfere with the target. So that won't create lots of debris. You could amount to an electronic attack. You might spray paint the sensors. You might even set the satellite spinning or off course. The US certainly has the lead in this type of technology, but lots of other states are pursuing it as well. This is an example of an either permanent or temporary test technically sophisticated attack which has some elements of stealth or unattributability. Directed energy weapons such as lasers which is pictured here have a number of desirable features for an attacker. The beams reach the targets rapidly since they travel at the speed of light and the delivery power can be tailored to be either temporary and reversible or to provide permanent debilitating damage. These weapons can target the sensors of satellites or the actual physical body of them. That would be a much more sort of ranging from a relatively low tech system to quite a high tech one if you were going to build something that could damage a satellite. Those are extremely sophisticated. Some important things to keep in mind. Difficulties that a lot of space technologies dual use space launch vehicles and bull signals are very similar in technology. And as I mentioned, close approach satellites is widely held not only by militaries but it's also a piece of interest for many other reasons. You could closely approach a satellite to refuel it or repair it. You can close approach structures in order to build large structures in space or to capture a piece of wayward debris and bring it back down to Earth and get it out of the way. Some difficulties and differences in space as I mentioned the dual use nature. Sometimes it's difficult to ascribe a failure of a satellite or a problem. There may be other natural causes or interference and who did the interference is difficult to do that in a timely way. Satellites are remote. It may be difficult for potential adversary to know whether satellites who who this, you know, the full range of purposes of a satellite and he owns it there is into comprehensive registry with all that information there may be some rationale for securing the true nature of a satellite and what it does. Satellites are difficult to protect in general. There may be short time scales for action if you're worried about losing a satellite in an attack you may use it so there's some use it or use it pressure there. And again, you're always working in the same space as multiple other states. So, so there's a lot of cooperation needed in order to keep space working well. And to just highlight that this is an image of what space looked like 50 years ago and today, who used satellites who uses satellites who can launch satellites. 50 years ago, it was really a US Soviet Union sphere, but today, 11 countries have demonstrated the ability to launch satellites and scores of countries own or operate their own satellite or a large share in one. So I'd be happy to take any questions about this. Thanks for your attention. Appreciate it. Thank you very much Laura. So moving straight on. The second speaker David Coplow is a professor of at the Georgetown University Law Center where he teaches and writes in the areas of international law national security and arms control and non proliferation. He served in government in the US Department of Defense, the US arms control and disarmament agency and NASA. Let's hear from David. Hello, I'm David Coplow from the Georgetown Law School and it'd be my pleasure to talk with you today about an introduction to space law space law one on one course if you will in only 10 minutes. Appreciate there's a lot of material to cover here just as space itself is a very big place with many cubic miles of territory. Space law is similar big with many cubic yards of trees and treatises and proposals. And so what I thought I'd do is to try to address it in terms of past present and future. Talk for a little bit about where space law comes from and how we got to where we are. Most of the time on the present where space law stands right now and then if time permits a little bit of a glimpse into the future about problems that might be emerging. So the first thing about the law of outer space the first noteworthy part is the sheer fact that it exists at all. You know, Sputnik in 1957. Nobody had a very good idea of what space law would be or could be many people assumed that just as a country has sovereignty over the airspace above its territory that that jurisdiction and control might extend infinitely upward. However, the legal regime for space is very different from the legal regime of air or land or see, and it evolved remarkably rapidly in the years after Sputnik. In fact, when I teach the international law course at Georgetown, I frequently use space as an illustration of rare illustration of how sometimes the world community can generate new law very quickly. Within only 10 years of the orbiting of Sputnik, the world had negotiated and concluded the outer space treaty document that's been joined by most of the leading space fair countries around the world. And it has established the general principles, the constitutional principles that underpin peaceful operations in outer space will go through the outer space treaty in some detail in just a moment. And within just a further 10 years after that, the world had negotiated three additional space treaties that further flesh out some of the principles, some of the operational concepts that have provided for safe and secure operations in outer space. This is by the standards of international law, astonishingly quick. International ordinarily operates at a very stately pace, but outer space shows that sometimes the world community can be mobilized into much more rapid action. However, it's also important to realize that after the 1970s and those first four constitutional treaties, the process of generating additional new law for outer space, basically ground to a halt. That's not been in the last 40 years, important new treaties about outer space and that there's been nothing that's gotten close to being accepted as a major treaty in outer space. And there have been relatively few non legally binding principles or agreements that have fleshed out the rules of operation in outer space. What we've got now is a set of original canonical treaties that establish principles and that set out some of the basic rules for the operation in space, but we don't have the additional infrastructure that would flesh out in a more detailed way. The rules of the road for safe and secure operation in outer space. And that prompts another observation about these early treaties. To reflect the style and structure of their era 1960s 1970s the style of drafting treaties was to make them brief and focused only on the level of high principles. The treaties do not contain the features that we more recently come to expect in international agreements they don't have detailed definitions of terms they don't create institutional structures that would operate the treaty they don't contain mechanisms for verification of compliance. Instead, the drafters of those treaties thought that their task was simply to lay out the beginnings of the law outer space and they anticipated that in the years to come, their work would be supplemented by additional operations and that just has not happened. So what we've got today is widespread agreement and very little controversy over the implementation no allegations of violations of these instrumental treaties, but they do not provide the kind of detailed guidance that would be necessary, including for the law of armed conflict in outer space, or other aspects of XO atmospheric operations. So that's the first point that the look at where space law comes from at the four instrumental treaties and the lack of detailed implementation thereafter. What I want to do now is dive into one of those treaties the outer space treaty and provide and explain some of the current content of that instrument and for this, I'll share the screen and bring up the text of the treaty. Here you see some excerpts from the outer space treaty and what I'd like to do is briefly go through some of those key key elements. First, in Article one, you can see that the exploration of outer space is to be carried out for the benefit and the interests of all countries. And the second paragraph that outer space shall be for exploration and use by all states without discrimination of any kind, you can't exclude from outer space, any country that wants to participate in that activity. In Article two, you can see that outer space is not outer space, including the moon and other such bodies is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty by means of user occupation or any other means. And this means that countries cannot claim that certain parts of space, or certain parts of the moon belong to us, and others have to keep away. And yet make those claims in outer space, the way the European colonial powers did, for example, make those claims in Africa and in the new world, or the way under the law of the sea convention countries are able to make the prioritized claims to certain zones of the ocean that other countries are obligated to respect that kind of claiming is not operational in outer space. Next article three established is an important principle that states are obligated to carry out their activities in outer space in accordance with international law, specifically including the Charter of the United Nations and this would include the law of armed conflict, for example, outer space is not a law free zone. Instead, countries take with them in outer space, the existing international law as it can be applied in that regime. Turning next to, there's a couple of articles that I want to come back to in a moment, but let me turn to article nine, which establishes some of the other operational principles for safe and sustainable operations in outer space, including the important principle that countries are to conduct their activities in outer space with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other states. Most of terrestrial international law does not have that kind of good neighbor operation there is not the explicit attention to the corresponding interests of other states. And that's fleshed out a bit further in article nine that says that if a country is going to undertake an activity and you have reason to believe that your activity or experiment in outer space could cause potentially harmful interference with the activities of other parties, you're obligated to consult before undertaking those activities. And again, that's unusual international law generally does not include a blanket requirement that countries consult. If their activities would cause potentially harmful interference with each other outer space has that special commitment. And this is, it must be acknowledged a somewhat soft commitment because it does not require you to refrain from undertaking the activity that would cause potentially harmful interference. You just have to consult about it. But at least that is a step forward from most other areas of international law. The first big picture point about outer space law is that it does have a number of elements written into the outer space treaty that has been accepted by most countries around the world to conduct their outer space activities in a particularly peaceful, sustainable, shared fashion, different from the regime that operates elsewhere. It is not a first come first serve regime. It's not a place where the countries that are the wealthiest or the most high tech or the first countries to be in a position to exploit the resources can exclude others from operations. So that then brings me to a second point about the attribution. The country is responsible for outer space in many areas. This is sort of easy. If a government of country X builds and launches a satellite and operates that satellite then it's pretty clear that country X and nobody else is responsible for that activity. But what happens if it gets more complicated, and it can get more complicated in two ways. First, many space activities implicate the activities of more than one country. What happens if a satellite is built in one country. It's launched by another country. The satellite is controlled or operated by a third it uses ground stations in another country it serves a market in another country. The cost of space operations has led in many instances to that kind of multinational consortium, where many stakeholders are involved in the activities of one satellite and may not be so clear, which country is responsible for which aspects of the operation that satellite under the outer space treaty, the country that's designated as the launching state or the state of registration has special responsibilities and special powers with respect to a satellite. But the term launching status is defined expansively and many countries could qualify as the launching state for a particular satellite. Many countries could therefore be implicated in the activity. The second way in which the national attribution is complicated requires to go back to the outer space treaty and look in particular at article six. Article six specifies that a country shall bear responsibility for space activities, whether such activities are carried out by governmental agencies, or by non governmental entities that government is responsible for the activities in space, carried out by its nationals or by non governmental persons and corporations. You may know that this is the opposite of the rule that applies in most areas of international law. In most areas of international law a country is not responsible for the bad acts of its corporations or its private persons if you're harmed by a person or corporation from another country you may have recourse against that private actor. They have recourse against their government, the government is not responsible does not stand behind the actions of its private entities. In space however, under the outer space treaty, the exact opposite rule applies that country is responsible for the actions in space of its non governmental entities, and therefore whether a private corporation or private individual or university launches a country, the government of that country is internationally accountable for that article six establishes this very different rule for for activities in outer space. The second question is attribution that determining which country is responsible for an activity in outer space is complicated because of the possibility of multilateral participation, and because the country is accountable for the private actions in space of its of its nationals. That brings us then to the third aspect that I wanted to spend time about and that is the military activities in outer space. And again, what we've got in the outer space treaty is a small passage only one article of the treaty article four that deals with military operations. It establishes some important principles without fleshing out or defining in sufficient detail how those actually operate. Let's turn back to the text of the treaty. And article four. There are two paragraphs, the first of which deals principally with activities in the void of space and especially with nuclear weapons in space. The second paragraph deals with our activities on the surface of the moon or other celestial bodies. And let's go through them point by point. The first paragraph article four, first paragraph article four says that states undertake not to place an orbit around the earth any objects carry nuclear weapons, or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction. Install such weapons on celestial bodies or station them in space in any other manner. That provides a very important bit of nuclear arms control. It prohibits countries from stationing nuclear weapons in orbit or elsewhere in space, and provides at least that degree of security instability for what was anticipated in 1967 as being a nuclear potential nuclear arms race in space. But note how this passage is limited. It's restricted only to nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. It does not carry any limitations on non nuclear non WMD. If you put in the void of space in orbit around Earth, a conventional weapon that would rely upon kinetic collisions or explosions or directed energy such as a laser beam. Article four has nothing to say about that it's restricted only to nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. In addition, the first paragraph article of article four is limited in another important way. It's restricted to prohibiting only three particular kinds of activities there are three verbs in that first sentence that are worth looking at. You can't place an orbit around the earth. You can't install the weapons on the celestial body, and you can't station weapons and outer space in any other manner. Anything that's not covered by those three verbs is not prohibited by paragraph one of article four and in particular. This provision does not prohibit the transit of outer space by nuclear weapon or other WMD such as a device that would be placed on top of an ICBM launched into space traveling through space then re entering the atmosphere to attack its target. That doesn't constitute an orbit and installation or a stationing and is not prohibited by article four. It may be too cynical to suggest this, but to me this represents a common tactic of arms control and that is where the countries solemnly agree to prohibit activities that they weren't so interested in doing anyway, or didn't have the the technical authority to do it all and preserve the right to do what they really wanted to do. So they've given up the right to place nuclear weapons in orbit, but they've retained the right to use nuclear weapons on ICBMs that would transit outer space. Turning to the second paragraph of article four, this addresses activities on the moon and other celestial bodies, and it to contains three specific prohibitions. You can't establish military bases installations or fortifications. You can't test weapons of any type, and you can't conduct military maneuvers on celestial bodies. It's worth noting that those treated those terms are not defined, but at least at the level of principle those three activities of three specific activities are prohibited. Other types of military activities that are not within those three precise categories would not be governed by the second paragraph of article four. The first sentence has a more of the first sentence of the second paragraph of article four has a broader provision it says that the moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all states parties in the treaty, exclusively for peaceful purposes. But the phrase exclusively for peaceful purposes is not as powerful as it might seem on its face. The leading interpretation of exclusively for peaceful purposes means that countries can are prohibited only from undertaking aggression in outer space from undertaking a military activity that would be a violation of the UN Charter military activities that are defensive in character that are legitimate under the UN Charter would not be undertaken for other than peaceful purposes, and therefore the leading interpretation of that first sentence restricts it only from prohibiting aggressive activities, allowing it to undertake a lot of parties to undertake peaceful self defensive activities in consistent that are conforming with the human Charter. So that again illustrates the power and the limits of the military provisions of the outer space treaty. It does establish specific prohibitions on particular activities with respect to nuclear weapons in orbit or installed or stationed in outer space and with respect to installations and fortifications and testing of weapons on the moon and other celestial bodies. But beyond that, the regime is much more permissive and unlimited, allowing countries to do most of the military activities that they would prefer to undertake anyway. In the interest of time, I'm afraid I don't have much to talk about much time available to talk about the future will leave that to the subsequent presenter and maybe we can talk about that a little bit more in the discussion section to follow. Let me just highlight briefly three points that I put on the agenda for additional discussion about future challenges to the international legal regime of outer space. The first is the widely perceived rising threat of hostile activities in outer space. In the last several years, the United States, Russia, China and others have undertaken a wide array of military activities regarding potential space control or anti satellite weapons activities that could be interpreted as the beginnings of an arms race or an anticipation of the future armed conflict in outer space. The international legal regime has relatively little restrained on that and this problem of how to anticipate or to foreclose the outbreak of hostilities in outer space is a important challenge for the legal regime yet to come. And we haven't had new arms control treaties in outer space for the decade, the last four decades. This is an important challenge that that's still life before us. The second important challenge to the existing legal regime in outer space is the proliferation the democratization of outer space up until recent years, almost all space activity was undertaken by governments. But in the last several years private and commercial activities have gone to space in much greater numbers, and the US government has undertaken a vigorous program of outsourcing, relying upon the private sector to conduct a wide variety of activities including many that were until recently exclusively the province of the national security community. This privatization of outer space the proliferation of hundreds or thousands of additional satellites will provide additional challenges to the space regime that as I indicated is stuck at the level of principles without providing sufficient guidance for rules of the road and space traffic management. And then the final item that I put on the agenda for consideration for future, just to channelize you a little bit is the problem known as planetary defense. Planetary defense asks what should be done if it's discovered someday that there's a large asteroid on a collision course with Earth. This is as you may know a problem that has a high likelihood of happening at some point, but the some point could be tomorrow or could be a million years from tomorrow. A large asteroid would be very bad day on Earth, and the challenge of dealing with it shared by NASA and the military services is a challenge that still remains to be addressed. So that's all I can say in this brief introductory period. I look forward to further discussion about the past present present and future of space law with you in the discussion session to follow. For now, let me just close as we do at Georgetown by saying Hoya Saxa. Fantastic. Thank you very much, David. It's challenging to cover space law in a short period of time, challenging for Laura to cover everything she did in the time available as well. But our third speaker major Jeremy Grunit is a United States Air Force Jag officer and attorney who has served as a military prosecutor civil and international law advisor and most recently was said to earn his master of law degree in air and space law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Jeremy is currently assigned to the United States Air Force Academy where he teaches law for Air Force officers and the Academy's new space law course. Thank you, Jeremy, either to you. Good afternoon. My name is Major Jeremy Grunit and I'm a United States Air Force Jag officer and attorney. I've been a Jag for approximately seven years served in a number of legal offices throughout the Air Force deployed and also earned an LLM degree in air and space law from the University of Mississippi School of Law. I'm currently serving as an assistant professor at the United States Air Force Academy in their Department of Law, where I teach the kind of basic law for Air Force officers course as well as the Air Force Academy's new space law course as well. Before I begin, I would like first to offer kind of the standard disclaimer. None of the remarks that I'm about to make today reflect the official views of the United States Air Force, nor the US Department of Defense, nor indeed the United States government, nothing that I'm about to say should be construed as any statement either official or unofficial of the United States Air Force. These are my personal views based on publicly available information and academic study engaged in both during my LLM program and afterwards. Secondly, I would like to thank Professor James Kraska, the chair of the Stockton Center for inviting me to participate in this panel, as well as squadron leader Kieran Tinkler, who assisted me immeasurably in preparing for this virtual event. He assisted me with these visual audio recordings and making sure that everything is ship shaped with them. And finally, I'd like to thank Wing Commander Duncan Blank for moderating this panel. Thank you. I'd like to begin my remarks about outer space law with a quote from Neil Gaiman's graphic novel series, Sandman. These are the responsibilities. These are the ties that bind us. We do what we do because of who we are. If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves. Now I suspect that if I were to really dwell on this quote, it would not prove to be half as deep as I like to think that it is. It provides to me a neat kind of pop cultural encapsulation of a key aspect of international law in general, and space law in particular. We are bound by rules that we've created for ourselves, right rules that we prefer to think reflect the best of us and our ideals, somewhat restrained and consistent with our national interests of course. And space law, right forged in the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War has largely done an admirable job of governing state action and average space. And it's done so for the past 60 years, but now as new technologies, new players, both state and commercial, new space architectures, new threats, both man made military threats and environmental threats, the ever present threat of space debris. As all of these new factors change the possibilities, the benefits and the risks of the outer space environment. One can't help but wonder in question, whether there may be a need for renewed rulemaking for the further development, the amendment of space law. Let me get back to my introductory quote, just as in game and Sandman, when his protagonist, Morpheus is unwillingness to bend required that he break it will do the United States, its allies and indeed the world, little good. If we inflexibly adhere to existing rules, refuse to create new ones and cling to the hope that other actors within this system will honor their responsibilities. The underlying environment has radically changed. Now, whether the nations, the world can or should attempt to conduct, especially their space security policies and activities in the gray zone between existing rules is also a significant question. As a collective of American space security policy, there's been an underlying tension between competing views and interests concerning the use and exploration of outer space. Since the beginning of human space exploration. On one side, we have the view described by Professor James Clay Molts as global institutionalism. The quasi utopian view of outer space as a place where nations can set aside their differences to prevent the violence, the conflict, the competition that has characterized human affairs on Earth, where nations can work together in the interests of all humanity to explore and harness the cosmos. This is probably most prevalent in US policy early on in the space age when it appeared that the Soviets were outpacing the US in both rocket technology and space capabilities. Now existing side by side with this view was the perspective of many US policymakers, including many high ranking members of the US military, that outer space presented untold possibilities for military use, those profound security threats, if another nation, particularly a US adversary such as the Soviet Union, achieved preeminence in space. This view, right, in which outer space is simply another arena in which nations will engage in realist style international competition has steadily gained ground, particularly after the creation of space focused air force and then US military wide functional stands during the 1980s with the recent birth of the United States Space Force, as well as the official recognition by the US government of outer space as a war fighting domain. It's not an exaggeration to say that this realist view of outer space seems to have won the day. My fellow panelists have discussed, or depending on the order in which these virtual videos are played will discuss. the existing international space law and some of its attempts to address military and security issues in outer space. Professor Koplow has described the outer space treaties prohibition of stationing nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in orbit, as well as the outer space treaties, strict limitations on military activities on celestial bodies. Professor Grego has described satellites and their uses, as well as the dangers of anti satellite technology. What's really apparent from all this is that as other space law experts, such as the late Professor Ben Ching have pointed out, there's a wide ranging gray area in outer space law. And it comes to security issues, particularly concerning outer space void, or the area of empty space between and surrounding celestial bodies. After all the legal prohibitions on only specific types of weapons right that are contained in the outer space treaty. This implicitly suggests that other weapons right weapons that don't fall under those explicitly prohibited categories, maybe legally placed in orbit, and potentially even used. Now with few exceptions, such as the Carter administration's abortive attempts to negotiate a treaty prohibiting the use of ASAP weapons with the Soviet Union. The United States has largely been content with the scope of existing international space law. At least after kind of the four primary outer space treaties were ratified, and, of course, excluding the moon treaty to which the United States is not a party. And again, this existing outer space law by omission permits a wide range of military and space security oriented activities. Though there are certainly nations that object to militarized uses of outer space, as contrary to the spirit, if not the text of the existing outer space treaties. There seems to be little textual support for the proposition, which some states have made the international law restricts the whole of outer space right, not just activities on celestial bodies but act also activities in the space void to exclusively peaceful purposes. More and more, a galactic version of the lotus principle right the idea that states can do what they will so long as there is no explicit prohibition under international law seems to govern state action, at least in outer space void. And as we've heard, there've been a number of instances in the space age when the need for hard law has been recognized by a sufficient majority of states. And that was, that was part of the reason why those four primary outer space treaties were drafted and then eventually ratified and have achieved the level of support that they have over the past several decades. And since, however, have offered glimpses of problems or challenges that states have attempted to address, only to fall back on non binding soft law, right, we have remote sensing principles, space degree space debris mitigation guidelines, declarations concerning international cooperation and the use of outer space for the benefit of all nations and the like. All of these non binding soft law, although of course, ultimately, as space lawyers and Aaron space lawyers like Professor Ben Ching suggested, contributing to the development of perhaps customary international law in the outer space realm. Now the creation of the United States Space Force offers us an opportunity for reflection on the future of outer space affairs, and particularly on the future of outer space law. Space operations, both defensive and even potentially offensive, continue to expand. And as the risks continue to proliferate in outer space, are we content to merely continue applying a lotus type principle on a galactic scale. Is it time to reexamine the international space law regime, specifically from the perspective of military and security issues to attempt to iron out firmer rules, firmer restrictions, governing conflict and military activity in outer space. To put it another game and ask way, who or what do we want to be, and what rules and responsibilities, do we wish to bind ourselves to. Thank you all for your time. And I look forward to welcoming your questions during our live events shortly. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jeremy and to to all the panel members in fact that that's that's excellent and there are many excellent questions there that we have. We can cover some of them. Unfortunately, not all of them. I don't think in the time available approximately seven or eight minutes available. So I'm going to start with, and you'll have to forgive me if I mispronounce the name El Medina or Tiger. The question, I think, could be addressed to all the panel members. I'll say who should start. But the question is about the devastating effects of kinetic energy weapons and whether they might be considered in discriminates. And also whether they could be regarded as just destructive enough destructive enough to to be thought of as or qualify as weapons of mass destruction for purposes of article four. But to start to answer that question. Laura, is it is it possible to confine the effects of of kinetic weapons. If, if you destroy a satellite on orbit and break it up into small pieces it's very difficult to keep it, not just nearby where the destruction happened generally, as you saw in the short animation I showed, it tends to fill in a shell and distribute itself so unfortunately it's very difficult to contain the effects of the kinetic energy destruction of a satellite. And also as I mentioned sorry, it is possible to trace the origin of those pieces of debris so that is an important piece when you're considering responsibility. Great points. Thank you very much. And for you, David, the so given that that those technical realities should we regard kinetic weapons is necessarily indiscriminate and therefore in violation of international humanitarian law. I think there's a very good argument to that effect. Remember the current technology affords very little ability to clean up debris from outer space, and therefore depending on the altitude at which the debris is created. To remain a hazard to safe navigation for decades or centuries, imperiling peaceful have activities and neutral activities, long after the war has ended. And there is I think an argument that it's not only indiscriminate but there would be disproportionate to the military value that could be gained by destroying an enemy satellite. So part of the question is also as to whether this would constitute a weapon of mass destruction. I don't think that's likely in the case of the destruction of a particular satellite, but I do think that there's a serious question as to whether it would be indiscriminate and disproportionate. Thank you. Thank you, David. So, moving on to another question, a popular question from Jeffrey Biller. People may have seen in news. It's not necessarily in a general stream of news, but certainly in space specific news that Elon Musk in in a recent statements and also in their standard contracts has suggested that Mars, the colony on Mars might be a free settlement. I think is the term that that was used and that it would be independent of the law of any particular nation or international law. So I'll put that to Jeremy first up and then see if David has anything else to say over to you, Jeremy. Thank you sir. Yeah, I think it's a great question, but I think that it really gets down to essentially the issue of national space law. So as David mentioned a moment ago and he was, you know, giving his discussion of kind of space law 101. You know, the nations that launch outer space missions, you know, retain liability for those things. And, you know, to various extent have to exercise jurisdiction and control over their missions. So, while, you know, of course, Elon Musk, you know, says a lot of things about what he would like to do in his attempts to colonize Mars. I think that flagrantly saying that he will not be governed by the laws of, you know, the United States, the international space law regime, or just international law in general is something that is really first of all pretty impractical and second of all, easily be constrained by the United States or any other launching states that agree to assist him in his launching affairs based on national space laws and regulations that they could pass. So, that would be my thoughts on it at least. Yes. I applaud Elon Musk's creativity and zeal for the space enterprise. But in this instance, his legal statement amounts to gibberish. There's nothing to the idea that Mars is a free space or that it would escape the terrestrial international law. The International Space Treaty is abundantly clear upon that international law does apply in outer space and under Article 6 of the Outer Space Treaty, all of his activities are under the responsibility of the United States. And all of that could change. But at the current time, his comments just don't make any sense at all. Thank you very much, David. Yes. And I can't help wondering that if it's a free settlement, then whose law would apply? I suspect that it will be the law of Elon Musk that would apply in that case. But another question in respect of orbital space debris, a question for Laura about means of cleaning up orbital space debris. And perhaps you could say something about you already touched upon dual use capabilities, but I think there's a potential challenge there as well, right? Yeah, so that's a great question. So there are lots of sizes of debris, big pieces of debris like a satellite that no longer works. But you're concerned about it exploding because there's some leftover fuel or it might break up if it was hit by another piece of debris, you want to take those out of space. That's one way to less clean up debris but prevent more debris from being generated. And as Duncan said, there are techniques where you might go up to that old satellite and grab onto it with your, you know, your maneuvering satellite and bring it back to Earth. And as he noted that might present some strategic or legal challenges because that is taking a piece of number one tech, the technology to get up close to another satellite and move it around it well is you can imagine pretty threatening and then of course legal issues about moving someone else's piece of equipment around if it doesn't happen to be yours but you're worried about it. But in general, it's very difficult to clean space of debris because space is enormous and even pieces of debris that are a size of a marble can be very damaging to a satellite if it hits you. In spaces, you know, much bigger, you can't clean out these tiny marbles out of this enormous volume of space. It's hard to do. So your best bet is to try to make sure you don't create more. That's certainly the best way going forward. The other problem, of course, is that a lot of it you lot of the debris that would be dangerous to your satellites you can't see and track. So again, even if you had a way to suck up all these tiny little marbles you don't know where all the problematic pieces of debris are so it's really imperative to make sure you don't create more because you're not going to be able to save yourself by cleaning it up later. Thank you very much, Laura. We probably only have time for one more question. Unfortunately, notwithstanding that there are lots of other excellent questions there. I'm going to supplement slightly a question by Aditya Parikh. And again, apologies if I have mispronounced the name, but the question relates to proximity operations. And I'm going to supplement it slightly by saying, well, what do we do about those areas of space activities that are under regulated where there is nothing express, say, in the outer space treaty or other space specific treaties? Are there things that are being developed that are legally binding or less than legally binding in respect of say rendezvous and proximity operations? So, David. I wish it were so. I wish that the process for generating additional international law were sufficiently flexible and responsive that we could say that there is a process underway to address these problems in a timely and effective fashion. But I'm afraid it's just not the case that the process for developing new international law has become unfortunately quite constipated in recent years. And it's been very difficult for the countries, the space-faring countries to generate new rules of procedure, new rules of the road for safe and sustainable operations in outer space. But a number of efforts through the United Nations and the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Use of outer space to generate new guidelines for long-term sustainability of the operations in outer space. And that's a mechanism that could contribute in a non-legally binding fashion. But in my view, it's not nearly enough. I think the world needs to do a whole lot more to generate new additional law, new mechanisms for making additional law on dealing with important challenges such as those you've identified. Thank you very much again, David. Unfortunately, that's all the time that we have for questions. You need a little bit of time to go off and get some lunch or similar wherever you are in the world. So probably won't be enough for a gourmet lunch, I don't think. Over to the hosts as to when you need to be back. Bye. Thank you, Laura, David and Jeremy for your terrific presentations and a special thanks to you, Duncan, for joining us so very early your time to moderate. We're pleased each of you could join us for this important discussion. Ladies and gentlemen, as Duncan said, we are about to break for what is for those of us on the US East Coast at least lunch. If you want to break, I would remind you that all three days of the event will be posted to the Naval War Colleges YouTube channel in the coming days for you to review at your convenience. Please do share those links with colleagues and interested parties that you know we're not able to join us. Next, Stockton Center event on February 10 as part of our continuing Stockton series will be addressing the legal aspects of issues in the Black Sea, the Sea of Issaac and the Kerch Strait. The hosts for this event will include Professor Katarzyna Zisk, Professor Wolf Heinchel von Heineck, and Professor Alexander Prauls. For more information on Stockton Center events as well as research and publications by the Stockton Center team we encourage you to follow us on Twitter, via at Stockton Center. You can learn more about the Stockton Center generally by going to us nwc.edu and clicking on the research and war gaming tab. We will restart our conference at 1330 Eastern Standard Time with our next panel, legal accountability for military space operations. Have a short but good break, and we will see you then. Hello from the Stockton Center for international law at the US Naval War College. I am Lieutenant Colonel Elton Johnson, and would like to welcome you back to the final session of disruptive technologies and international law. I hope you have enjoyed as I have the outstanding lineup of keynote speakers, moderators and panelists over the last two and a half days, and I'm confident you will find these final presentation presentations just as impressive. A reminder, if you have a question you would like to see posed to one of our panelists, please use the question and answer button located near the bottom of your screen. If you see someone else's question and would like to see it answered, please hit the like button, and that question will rise in the rankings and the moderator is more likely to pose it to the panel. Our next panel will address the legal accountability for military space operations. Our moderator for this panel is Ms. Lynn Tatro. Ms. Tatro is the Senior Space Operations Law and Policy Advisor for Combined Force Space Component Command and Space Operations Command West at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Before joining the civilian workforce, she served as an Air Force Judge Advocate for 20 years. Ms. Tatro, over to you. Thank you very much. I think it looks a little dark here, but hopefully all can, you can see me well enough. Thank you very much, Lieutenant Colonel Johnson, I appreciate the introduction and I'm very excited to be able to be here as a monitor and that the that Squadron Leader Tinkler invited myself to be part of this conference. I think it's been a very exciting conference, up to this point having conversations about disruptive technologies and the challenge that we face under international law with these new and emerging technologies that we are seeing, certainly in the other domains to include maritime and cyber. And as we turn our attention today to the space domain. And it's very exciting the to the next couple panels that we have that we get to talk about legal accountability for space for military space operations, as you can imagine as the legal advisor to the commander for SIFSIC that combined for space component command. It's the operational component of the newly branded United States Space Command a the newest geographic combatant command for the US Department of Defense. This is a daily topic for us. This is something that comes up every day as to what is our accountability for our operations that we conduct in space and as we look at the emergence of new technologies such as laser communications and quantum communications and the directed energy capabilities, the anti satellite capabilities. These are very important questions are very important questions that are raised by the disruptive technologies for our legal attorneys are military practitioners to have to the commanders on. But it's also something that rises to the level not just at our military commanders but our national leaders are addressing this and we see some of this coming up in the development of the new national space policy and their their reinvigoration of the National Space Council under the current administration we'll see where that goes under future in future political leanings administration. But for the purposes of today's panel and very excited to to say that we have two very experienced and very knowledgeable presenters today for this particular panel, and I hope that you'll be just as excited as I am on the topic as we as we are sort of the areas that military practitioners need to understand with regard to state responsibility. And so our first presenter today is Professor Franz Wanderdunk. And as you can see from his bio in the program he holds the Harvey and Susan Perlman alumni and often chair of space law and LLM program on space cyber and telecommunications law at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He also holds the dubious honor of being of having published the first handbook of space law and advanced introduction to space law as well. And for many of you out there who are familiar with space law and policy issues, you will note that he is also the author and publisher of several space articles on the topic so I'm excited to turn the floor over to you, Professor. Thank you. Thank you for. Thank you very much for your kind introduction. I think if you're going to play my video right. Yes sir we're all set to go. Or do you want me to do it live. No sir we have the video all queued up. Okay, go ahead then I'll mute. Good afternoon or good morning wherever you are. My name is Franz Wanderdunk. And I would like to thank the Naval War College and the Stockton Center for allowing me to talk to you about two very important principles of international space law called responsibility and liability. To address those concepts as they have as they have arisen in general space law without as of yet specifically focusing on disruptive technologies or the use thereof in the context of space or the possibility for space and technologies to be used in the context of conflicts. I will confine myself to what happened in space law as such. The first thing we should note is that these concepts are very much tied to the involvement of the private sector in outer space. And this is not something that is self evident we should realize that there are probably in a summary version, three general characteristics of space activities. The first one is that it's incredibly technological. Much of it may be disruptive, but even very peaceful and non aggressive and non harmful technologies are still usually very high technologies. The second element, which is typical of almost any space activity even today is that as a consequence of the technology of the level of technology, they cost an awful lot of money, just to get a pound of weight into outer space on average cost $10,000. And then the third characteristic is that in spite of all the technology behind it and the money poured into it. It is still a fairly risky business. Many things can go wrong many things have gone wrong and many things will continue to go wrong. So these are three, I would say disincentives from the outset for the private sector to be to get interested because they often do not have the high technology or feel uncomfortable using it. They do not have the lots of money often necessary to go into outer space and they are obviously trying to avoid as much risks to their activities as possible, because that way they can't make money. As a consequence of this, and I should say this is the traditional way that space activities developed, the main reasons for undertaking space activities at all had nothing to do with with the usual interests for private sector. Again, I would say there are many three reasons, one, the most profound one is probably the military advantages that a developed space sector could provide for a state. Obviously, a launch vehicle is almost the same as a missile. So when you develop space technologies, many of those can also be used for military purposes for getting the upper hand over a potential adversary. A little bit broader, a second motivation is what I call prestige. The space race in the 60s and 70s in particular was about two competing political systems the United States and its free enterprise democracies and the Soviet Union, and its communist system, which tried to convince the rest of the world that their system was technologically and politically and socially superior. And one way of doing that was to show first in outer space. That's part of why the space race has originated in the 1960s. And then the third reason is science, discovering more about the universe in which we live more about the planets and the solar system, or even about things like dying stars and black holes. When you are in outer space, you don't have to look through the atmosphere, there's no light pollution, and it's often much easier to find out a lot of interesting scientific detail about outer space. Now all these three reasons for going into outer space are only of interest to states. So as a consequence, space was traditionally a domain of states and in the original version of the 50s, 60s and well into the 70s actually only of the United States and the Soviet Union. Most other states either piggybacked on the broad backs of those two superpowers, or they joined various international cooperation mechanisms, such as intergovernmental organizations. The private sector basically remained to the extent that it was involved at all. Of course, the Soviet Union did not know very much of a private sector, but in the United States, even in the United States, its role remained to manufacturing for the space agency. As soon as anything was actually going into outer space, it was all NASA or the Department of Defense, which did that. That also transpired in the regime of space law, which was developed in the same time period, notably in the outer space treaty, the most important treaty of them all in 1967, which clearly stated that states are the makers and the breakers of space law. All the rights and obligations in the outer space treaty were addressed to states. There was a sort of vague reference to intergovernmental organizations who were seen and treated still as institutionalized platforms for cooperation of sovereign states because it was all about sovereign states and outer space. And the private sector was only mentioned once and then not even by that name. So the paradigm then started to change in two important respects. Over time, space became more open to the participation of many other countries, including smaller ones, even developing countries, who sometimes had a different take on the role of private enterprise in that context, but most importantly for responsibility and liability. We saw an increasing what I call practicalization of space activities, many applications and technologies started to gradually filter down to earth, prove that they had potentially huge benefits for society on earth. And I think about the use of satellites for communications for satellite remote sensing and earth observation or for satellite navigation and all these developments gradually meant that potentially money could be made there, which then in turn, of course, got private enterprise interested in participating. However, the outer space treaty, which didn't address any private sector activities as such, did not change. And we still have an article six, which states that states are fully responsible for all national space activities, including if they are carried out by non governmental entities, which is the only reference in the treaty to the concept of private enterprise. They are also required to authorize and supervise such private activities. So in short, whatever Boeing does in outer space Boeing be a US company means that the United States is internationally responsible for it directly as if it was an activity of NASA itself. And there's a kind of a complimentary article article seven also provided for state liability. As soon as a state qualified as a launching state of the space object causing damage, that state could be held liable even if the private space object was operated owned maintained launched whatever private sector entity. This particular article was then further elaborated by a later convention 1972 liability convention but it basically provide for the same level of state liability. The consequence of all this was that you saw every state fundamentally interested in allowing private sector activities in outer space to be almost reduced or even forced to establish a national authorization regime by means of a national space law. If we had more time we could pay play fun with flags but this is the current situation in terms of countries that have established a national space law, dealing with the authorization of private sector space activities in order to take care of their responsibility and liability for such activities, which as I indicated before, in the first instance was pretty, pretty straightforward and pretty, pretty 100%. That doesn't mean that there were any problems, partly because in 1967 and 1972 nobody really thought in detail about private sector participation. There was a lot of details which were left unsolved. For example, in the context of article six, what is the exact definition of national activities in outer space. If we want to answer that we can of course think by logic, but more, more proper is probably do you look at state practice and how states in used this article interpreted this article in the context of the national space law and what we see is that in the most common interpretation is that national activities comprise both activities by nationals, individuals, whether natural or legal persons, and activities from undertaken from national territory. But there are, which by the way is a solution which is strongly supported by a general assembly resolution of 2013, which is such as no binding law, but maybe reflecting customary international law in this context. But there are some countries who go further. Some extend the scope of their licensing regime of the concept of national activities for which they feel they may be held responsible to what I call quasi territory, register chips aircraft or other mobile platforms in space objects themselves, or it extends to activities otherwise somehow related to national territory citizens and or interests, and some states limited the scope of their laws in terms of the ratio and material approach to scope, not to all space activities but only to launching or to satellite remote sensing, or to space resource utilization only so in that sense there is still a lot of fragmentation in the international arena as to how to properly interpret national activities in outer space for the purpose of article six of the other space. So moving on. Oh yeah and finally, it even happens to be the case that many laws simply apply their general laws on telecommunications which often date back to way before the the actual satellite, the role of satellites in telecommunications in that country could become operational. They simply extended the scope of these general regimes of telecommunications to satellites without often really realizing the additional things that a satellite brings in terms of its legal obligations and rights. Moving on to article seven of the outer space region liability convention. It provides for a launching state definition which is the famous four fold one which says that if you're a state which launch a state which procures a launch, the state from whose territory launch takes place, or the state from whose facilities a launch take place, the space object concerned if that car causes damage, then you are held liable. And that looks like a very straightforward interpretation, but there are various interpretations of how broad or how narrow procurement should be interpreted. And what if a private sector entity is actually undertaking a launch should that still imply the liability of the state as a launching state. The question applies if the private sector entity procures the launch instead of the state which launches, or if a private facility is used for launch of the space object, again, even if again does that lead to state liability of that state as being the one whose facilities are issued. There is no consistency across the national laws on this context so there is no uniform state practice. Now the $1 billion question with which I want to conclude here and then this goes of course back to the theme of the conference is that space law does apply a very absolute and thereby fundamental measure of state accountability for private sector facilities, which actually is largely the result of the highly disruptive the likely sensitive dual use of most space technologies so that really quality that really questions, whether this regime also extend or should extend or would extend to the domain of military space operations or the threat or use of armed force in outer space because it was not really meant for that back in the days. But for this, I leave you in the good hands of Rob Holden. Thank you very much. Professor really appreciate your insights on the international outer space treaty and its provisions with regard to state responsibility and state liability as it pertains to non government actors. And for the next presenter, as you mentioned is Colonel Robin Holman. I had the great pleasure of meeting Colonel Holman and working with him directly. As we participated in us sponsored multi domain war game called shriever war games where we deal and focus specifically on space and cyber activities in the future. He's a European good hands with his presentation next, Colonel Holman is the chief of staff of the office of the judge advocate general for the Canadian Armed Forces. He has held many positions in the Canadian Armed Forces to include as the deputy judge advocate general for operational and international law. In his personal capacity. He is part of the international group of legal and technical experts on the woman manual manual on the international law of military space operations. And so the next presentation will be the recorded presentation of Colonel Holman. Sir, over to you. Start by thanking the Naval War College and Stockton Center for the invitation to participate in this panel and the conference overall. And especially the squadron leader Karen Teakler has been tireless in his efforts to pull this event together and has been hugely helpful on particularly the space law side of things. Finally, let me also thank Lynn for moderating the panel and most especially Franz for his really excellent elaboration of the relevant provisions in space law with respect to liability and responsibility. In my presentation, I would propose to take up Franz's invitation and speak about some of those aspects related to the application and the interpretation of Article 6 of the Outer Space Treaty in relation to space activities that are in the range on the spectrum of conflict in the U.S. and in the armed conflict spaces. So let's just recall that Article 6 of the Outer Space Treaty provides in part that a state bear is international responsibility for all of its national activities in outer space, whether such activities are carried on by governmental or non-governmental entities. And as Franz has eloquently described for us, this is a provision that made all sorts of sense in 1967 when the Outer Space Treaty was agreed. And with respect to the vast majority of space activities, particularly commercial space activities today, it continues to make a great deal of sense. But there's some practical and interpretive challenges that arise when we move up the spectrum of conflict beyond those merely peaceful and peaceable activities, particularly where those activities are undertaken by non-state actors, non-governmental entities in the language of the treaty, and particularly those non-state actors that don't have any of those connecting factors to the state that would give rise to attribution of their activities to the state under the ordinary rules of state responsibility. And one starts to wonder about how Article 6's provisions and its special rule of attribution, direct attribution of all national activities to the state itself, will be put into practice by states. So let me very briefly address and just leave perhaps for discussion some issues further to the left, if you will, on the spectrum of conflict. So that is activities that might amount to an interference or to use the term of art from the Outer Space Treaty and the provisions in the International Telecommunications Union instruments to harmful interference and even to interference that might amount to an unlawful intervention. That is an interference of a coercive nature that attempts to have an impact on matters that are within the exclusive competent of the state. And suffice to say at this point, although some of what I'm going to say is relevant to it later, there's no real subsequent state practice to the agreement of Article 6 that assists us in understanding how that rule might or might not apply in those areas. As we go higher on the spectrum, though, the consequences and the risks associated with any uncertainty about Article 6's proper interpretation become more significant. So when we get to the stage of talking about whether a particular activity constitutes a threat or a use of force, as those terms are understood in Article 2, paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter, some of these interpretive issues are worth considering. Does Article 6 mean that the activities in Outer Space of a let's call it rogue non-governmental entity? So one that's sufficiently connected to a state to make its activities national activities of that state, you know, outer space, but that doesn't possess the sort of connections to the state. No direction, no control, no subsequent adoption or acknowledgement on the part of the state of those activities as its own. That would lead to attribution under the ordinary rules of state responsibility. That is to say the director of articles on state responsibility proposed by the ILC. As a simple example, if a Canadian non-governmental entity were to hack into and take control of a Swiss satellite, and then use that satellite to destroy a United States national technical means satellite, would that constitute a use of force, a threat of force, even possibly an architect that would give rise to the right of self-defense on the part of Canada or Switzerland, that is a threat of use of force or an architect, by them, and a right of self-defense on the part of the United States? Now in this case, I think the law contained in the UN Charter, which has developed significantly since 1967, gives us enough, in my opinion, guidance to suggest that states would not interpret Article 6 as in fact leading to responsibility on the part of Canada or Switzerland, or to the right of self-defense on the part of the United States. That said, it may well give rise to other remedies on the part of the United States, but I think that there's enough of a recognition that the law related to threats and uses of force is sufficiently developed and sufficiently suigenerous that the ordinary rules, even in the draft articles with respect to state responsibility, don't apply in the way that they would otherwise. And I think that that's the same with respect to space. While we're in this space, let me say that another scenario that is of particular interest to me as a military legal advisor is the one of a state planning its own attributable space activity against a space object. Now, this doesn't relate directly to Article 6. It's kind of the obverse of the question of which states might you be making anger through your activities. Recognizing that the state making the plans has its own sense of where its activity is going to fall on the spectrum, but that where the activity falls is in the eye of the beholder. And so you're entering a risk space already in terms of affected states and how they might proceed the activity and what actions they might be legally authorized to undertake in response. So as a good legal planner, I think this is an important exercise to go through in order to understand, for lack of a better term, which states you're going to make angry by your potential activity. And in that regard, there are a number of possible connecting factors that the planners will need to consider. But it's not at all clear which of these may or may not be relevant. To begin with, there's the launching state. And Franz has already given you the definition in space law of what is a launching state. I've pointed out to you that under some circumstances it's possible to have as many as four launching states of a particular space object. State of registry, well there's only one state of registry, but again I think it's important to recognize that unlike an air law and the law of the sea, registration of a space object does not equate to nationality of that space object. What about the owners and operators of the satellite? Does the state in which those companies or those entities are domiciles have a right? Or the states or entities within states that are making use of the satellite's operations? So which of those, if they perceive an internationally wrongful act on the part of the state that I'm advising, might be coming after my country in terms of countermeasures, in terms of demands for cessation, non-repetition, reparations, and in the worst case scenario even in self-defense. Finally, let me turn to Article 6 during armed conflict. An interesting question I think, and we're going to have some discussion I think across all of the space panels, is about how you fit the lexpecialis of space law into the lexpecialis of the law of armed conflict. But I want to say a few words about attribution to a state of space activities of a non-governmental entity in the context of an armed conflict. Now, thankfully we have no subsequent state practice to assist us in terms of armed conflict in outer space and armed conflict relating to space activities. But we do, however, I think have some assistance in the rule against absurdity. Strongly suggest that at least in some cases during armed conflict, Article 6 ought not to apply as broadly as its language would seem that it should. Here's an example. State A is engaged in a NIAC against one or more insurgent groups made up of its own nationals and the insurgency is taking place. The NIAC is taking place on its own territory. State B comes in to assist State A, including through the use of its space assets. If one of the State A insurgent groups then carries out an attack on a State B space object, strict application of Article 6 says that State A is responsible for the attack on its ally and indeed might even be in an armed conflict against its ally. And that sort of absurdity I think provides a clear indication of the limits of Article 6's utility, at least in respect of armed conflict. I think I will stop there with my thanks and say that I'm very much looking forward to the discussion, although I expect I will be wearing something different during the discussion than I am right now. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, Colonel Holman, for your presentation. I see that you're up on the screen and I would ask that Professor von der Dunck also activate his camera for opportunities to answer questions. I also see that there are no questions in the block right now for the Q&A session. So, Lynn, I've activated my mic, but you seem to be blocking my video still for somebody. I see. I don't have a picture anyway that we're seeing from. We see you. There we go. I prefer to be live. Thanks. There we go. Now we get to see you. Thank you very much. That's fantastic. Well, thank you, Colonel Holman. Appreciate your insight on that as well. I'm sure, certainly for myself, that your commentary raises many questions as far as military responsibility. Let me at first just go back to Professor von der Dunck, please, and ask you to what extent did the drafters of Article 6 of the Outer Space Treaty consider the military and security aspects of space activities when they agreed upon the Article 6 state responsibility for private state activities. Can you expand upon that? That's a very interesting question, because the answer is, as far as I can see, I wasn't surprised with the negotiations. Unfortunately, I was just the young kid back then. But from what I see in hindsight, is that the two main contenders, which were obviously the United States and the Soviet Union back in the days, if they wouldn't have agreed on that clause, a few other states would have bothered to think about it, because if you don't have the two big elephants in the room and their signatures under the treaty, it doesn't make too much sense. Certainly not back in the 60s. And I have a feeling that the United States had a very clear, made a very clear distinction between that because obviously in U.S. society, the military sector and the private sector are two totally different parts of society, even if they work together. They have totally different aims. One is purely public, the other is purely private. But on the other side of the fence, you had the Soviet Union, which was, which were very suspicious of everything the United States and the rest of the capitalist world was doing, and basically viewed private enterprise as just a fifth column, a veiled extended arm of U.S. power and ignored the idea that private enterprise was basically interested in their own money. So it was partly from their perspective that Article 6 includes to such a maximum extent private sector activities in the concept of state responsibility, because the Soviet Union was adamant that if any U.S. company would do something that would violate the rights of the Soviet Union and international law, they didn't want to talk to Boeing or SpaceX, who didn't exist at the time of course, or Lockheed Martin, or you name them. They wanted to directly state to state, sovereign state to sovereign state, say United States, you should take care of the dogs in your backyard and make sure that they don't do anything. So we don't want anything of the private and of course they had to do with their communist attitude. So the two approaches, the two conceptions were fundamentally different and it's to some extent an art to reconcile such hugely different views in that one sentence. So that was basically, it's a long answer, but to give you the idea of where this terminology comes from. Yes. And I think we can see certainly in state practice we've had different from a U.S. perspective we've had different experiences and different successes with some activities that we've seen certainly with regard to commercial having trying, from a U.S. perspective U.S. companies, having concerns about activities of the military capability space capabilities of other nations and where do they go to raise this issue and they do you go through the U.S. State Department, in some case, they've not necessarily been successful in finding an advocate on that regard, but then perhaps just going directly from commercial to to the state and I know this relative success of that has been somewhat varied in at least in what we've seen for state practice. So I would ask to Colonel Holman, sir, in in your purse from your perspective you spoke about the activities of the of the non governmental actor and and the perception that the military might have of the activities of that non governmental actor and how state responsibility would reflect upon that I would ask you. You spoke about the which states you might make angry in some of your military activities and of course it could extend to the non governmental actors actors as well if even the military operations are having some sort of an interference in the the non governmental and so there's a lack of guidance I would I would suggest perhaps in in international I certainly in the outer space tree on how we handle the type of complaints from say a non governmental actor as to those activities of certainly the military and I'm wondering if the provisions under article nine do regard have any implication here in that state responsibility over to you. Yeah, I think they probably do. One of the advantages of you know recording this and hearing yourself is you can also recognize the things that you should have said, as you were saying things and the things I should have said yes. One of the things I should have said in the in the self dispense space and then I'll go to article nine is is that in my example to. The United States may have a right of self defense against the non state actor, you know, maybe not against the launching state or the registration state or the ownership state under the circumstances but if if your view of the you said Bellum is such that that states have an inherent right of self defense against non state actors in some circumstances. And it will continue to exist. It seems to me in these circumstances. But when you talk about article nine and and so for those that don't know I'll just read a little bit of it. So, states shall conduct all of their activities and outer space including the moon and other celestial bodies with due regard to the corresponding instrument interests of all other states to the treaty. State parties to the treaty shall pursue studies of outer space including the moon and other celestial bodies and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment. And I'm paraphrasing a bit here, if a state party to a treaty has reason to believe that an activity or experiment plan by it or its nationals in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies would cause potentially harmful interference with the states parties in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, which will undertake appropriate international consultations. So, you know, non compliance with those things would be an internationally wrongful act on the part of the state, and would rise to the sort of remedies that are available under general international law, and I think would probably fall within the attribution scheme set out for in in article six certainly there's no state practice at this point to to suggest anything, anything about that. The other piece, I guess that I would mention and maybe pitch it over to to France briefly is that that a non state actor affected by a states activities might also look to, you know, through through some state to the liability provisions and and and seek recompense under under article seven or indeed under the liability convention from the state as well. I don't know if you want to say anything about that. Actually, that is that the possibility to use the liability convention or article seven to to assert claims for liability is exclusively limited to states they can do it on behalf of the private sector can never use it themselves. Having said that liability convention does specifically state it is not an exclusive remedy. So any private victim or private operator feeling victimized or able to to prove damage can also go to more traditional route of of suing whoever he thinks is liable in in a normal capacity in courts either in his own state, although it then raises issues of enforcement if the if the perceived liable operator is in another state, or in the courts of that other state which raises again practical issues but in theory that certainly possible but the liability convention venues only open for states as such. Perfect. And so, under the state responsibility, our article six of the outer state treaty does it still apply if the state itself does not authorize the activities of the non governmental actor. I mean, is there in some way sort of a risk of convenient of a flag of convenience, so to speak, in the situation where a state may wish to apply sort of a lower level of supervision in order to attract an economic space activities. And that is of course clearly focused to the to the non military side at least initially. I would say that has been a little bit of a discussion if you read article six it provides both the state responsibility and for the requirements to authorize and there have been colleagues of mine who tried to argue that if you do not authorize, you cannot be held responsible. Now in in in when it comes and I'm putting aside the military parts maybe for up to answer because again there we go into a whole different ball game but in the commercial as to the commercial the civil side, the non military side. It has been pretty much accepted now that not authorizing doesn't the doesn't take away your responsibility as a matter of fact is the other way around you are responsible, as long as it qualifies as an actual activity. And then of course you better authorize and supervise because you will still be held responsible anyway I see that as one of the beauties of spaceball and flags of convenience. I know it's a major issue in in marine worlds. I don't see that much of a risk in in in the space world and that's basically for two reasons. One is the practical one. If you if you license if you impose low requirements on a ship in a tank or something like that. And the risks that something bad as a consequence will happen because the captain is incapable or the ship is no built to proper standards. It's maybe only a couple of percent that it hits your coast usually the accident happened somewhere else and somebody else is fishery or or environment that gets gets a big hits from economic disaster so the the penalty for being a flag of convenience usually is paid for by others other states and they're there. That is not the case in space. The most dangerous part of any space activity is still the launch. So if you are sloppy in licensing somebody to launch and you don't control whether he knows what he's doing. You are most probably the one suffering from it. So that's a huge incentive for any launching state not to be very lenient on licensing. And the second thing is actually again the beauty of the space war regime. It is the state which will be held liable and he can't say well you go and sue the private operator in the private capacity. The state has to pay which again is a huge incentive for the state to make sure as all these countries that I've shown these flags of have done basically that they have some form of authorization and control over those activities including provisions of the creation of international liability to the actual operator. So I don't think that risk is very opportune in in in matters of space in matters of commercial space. And again maybe rock wants to add something to that but even in military space that's probably a third reason. I don't think it wants to be to get involved in a in a space conflict just because you you you you allowed someone to launch from your territory who then turned out to to rage, you know to enrage a couple of other superpowers who take the appropriate counter mentions them to see what I mean. Yeah I think that's right I think with respect to most military activities. And so when you're when you're thinking about, you know, the who are you going to make angry piece. You're presuming, and I think it's appropriate to presume that those things are under the control. And so in the words of article six are you know authorized and under the continuing supervision of the state. And it's it's generally a governmental entity, or it's a non governmental entity that's clearly doing it under the authorization and continuing supervision of the state. You know the piece that I was raising that Franz I think was mentioning in the USAD Bellum space is, you know, it creates in a small subset of circumstances, the possibility that a state might be held responsible at international for things that it, it has, you know, little ability to to control, or has has done everything that it that it ought to do. But, but but still, you know criminal activity, in essence, occurs that that has an international effect. That's of a concern, as I tried to indicate in in the USAD Bellum space when you're talking about, you know, a threat or use of force, or something that that gets to the point of an armed attack. But when you're in that space that you were talking about in in article nine, right, where a non state actor does something that amounts to a failure of due regard, or, you know, potential harmful interference, or even something in the nature of an intervention. At some point, you know there's a cut off, and clearly article six applies in all of those circumstances. Above that cut off point, you know, clearly, we would expect that that states subsequent practice with respect to the interpretation or that's relevant to the interpretation of article six would indicate that states don't intend to be bound in such a constrained way by the the special rule of article six. The question is, you know, where is that line. And, you know, is it in the intervention space, is it further to the left on on the spectrum of of the use of force. And that I think is something that, you know, different people based on on their own experience and biases probably might have different views of how states might react we don't have any actual evidence of how states have reacted in those circumstances yet so that's a watch this space sort of question. Thank you thank you very much for for that response as well. And in order to be mindful of the time that we have available and to keep the, the program on track. I believe we are at the end of our time. And I show, I show 1120 by my time which should be 1420 by your time so I will turn it back over to Lieutenant Colonel Johnson. Thank you very much. Thank you, Miss Tatro for moderating that superb panel, and thank you as well to Professor von der Dunk in Colonel home and for your fantastic presentations. We are pleased each of you could join us today for this important discussion. It is 1420 to 20pm Eastern Standard Time. We'll go ahead and take a 10 minute break and come back and launch into the law of arm conflict neutrality and counter space operations at 1430 to 30pm Eastern Standard. See in 10 minutes. All right, welcome back. Our next panel will address the law of arm conflict neutrality encounter space operations. We are very pleased to welcome as our moderator for this panel, Mr Michael Hoverston, chief of space international and operations law for headquarters United States Space Force. Michael Hoverston also served on active duty in the US Air Force for more than 20 years is a B 52 defense aerial gunner and judge advocate. Mr Hoverston, I hand the panel over to you sir. Well good afternoon everyone, and my thanks to the Naval War College and Stockton Center for inviting me to moderate this discussion that's true in my privilege. One way of an example of how things are changing in the United States when it comes to how we organize our military space forces. When I sent my violin for this conference a few weeks ago I did in fact work for headquarters United States Space Force. Today I work for space operations command space operations command is the very first field command under the new military, the US military service, the space force. In fact over the last two years I've worked for five different commands, but my duties and responsibilities haven't really changed very much. It's just an example of how timely this topic is and how important it is. Since I do work for space operations command I must give a disclaimer, and that is that the comments and opinions that I might express during this panel are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the US Department of Defense Air Force Space Force I get my privilege to be here and moderating this panel. For decades outer space was the sort of sanctuary where the world's two superpowers operated with near impunity. The United States and Soviet Union, both tested anti satellite weapons in the 1980s, but the tests were short lived and quickly discontinued. The outer space remained a virtual sanctuary for the next 20 years or so. That has changed. Today, more than 60 nations operates satellites and outer space, and more than a dozen nations have the capability of space launch. The Gulf War in Iraq in 1991 is cited by many as the world's first space war. The world was not actually waged in outer space at that time. Rather, space capabilities such as communications, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance and position navigation and timing enhanced and enabled military operations and the terrestrial That too is changing as the threat of armed conflict beginning in or extending to outer space has increased over the last 10 to 15 years for nations has successfully demonstrated anti satellite weapons technology, India being the latest with a successful test just last year. Further, emerging dual use technologies, such as on orbit servicing and debris removal and increasing rendezvous and proximity operations pose potential threats to satellites on orbit. Recognizing the increased threat to arm conflict extending to space. The United States recently took action to defend its interests by establishing United States Space Command as its newest combatant command. And the United States Space Force as its sixth armed service. Further, the US, many of its allies and NATO have recently recognized space as a military operational domain. The international legal community is also taking action by evaluating the law applicable to military operations and armed conflict in space. Academia is stimulating discussion and debate through conferences like this one, and through projects like the lunar manual on the international law of military space operations. Those efforts will help to inform government and military legal advisors, as they work to advise senior government officials and me military leadership at all echelons of command on military operations in space. For our final panel, we have three recognized experts in space law and the law of armed conflict to discuss just a few of the legal issues posed by armed conflict extending to the space domain. All three are core experts and were more manual on international law of military space operations. I will briefly introduce all three. They will each make a short presentation and the panel will then entertain questions from the audience. Please be sure to submit your questions throughout the presentations. Our first speaker is Lori blank. Professor blank is a clinical professor of law, director of the Center for international and comparative law and director of the international humanitarian law clinic at Emory University School of Law. She is also a senior fellow at the labor Institute for law and land warfare. Lori, over to you. So I first want to thank the Stocks and Center for inviting me to participate in this great event. I'm really looking forward to some great discussions during the question and answer and discussion period. What I want to talk about for a few minutes here is some issues in military operations in outer space and counter space operations, looking at the role and placement and impact on civilians. So, you know, we all know it's axiomatic that protection of civilians has been a dominant issue in military operations over the past few decades. Obviously it's at the core of the law of armed conflict. And so it's appropriate that whenever we talk about military operations whenever we talk about the application of the law of armed conflict. We are thinking about talking about focusing on protection of civilians. Much of the discussion in recent years has focused on urban warfare densely populated areas, questions of the use of particular weapons in those areas. Questions about the use of the infrastructure of the densely populated areas to shield military operations and all of those impacts on civilians. And naturally all of those scenarios pose enormous risk for civilians. So now when we move to outer space, and we think about military operations in outer space, we might think, oh, we've got a little bit of a respite from the high intensity conversations about civilian protection issues. Because after all outer space is really, really far away from any areas with a lot of civilians. It is kind of the polar opposite of densely populated civilian areas. And so we might think that we're going to talk about a lot of other law of armed conflict questions, you know, which weapons to use any number of different questions. But actually, space and operations in or through or from outer space present a number of interesting issues or complications in the context of targeting and military operations when we think about civilians. So just a couple of background points, anytime we're talking about targeting, anytime we're talking about military operations, it inherently requires an understanding of the civilian population, the civilian infrastructure, the civilian patterns of movement, and the effects of targeting and more broadly military operations on that civilian population on that civilian infrastructure, and so on. It requires that we understand where civilians are when, at what times, what the effects might be, and so on. Well, now, when we think about the context of outer space, how do we start to think about these issues, right, they're going to be the same in some way because the law requires in fact demands that we think about these issues. But it's going to look a little bit differently, because again, we're not in a densely populated city, we're talking about things in outer space, however, those things we're talking about in the context of outer space are intimately connected to everyday life to the lives of civilians and the services that they depend on and so on. So, when we're talking about law of armed conflict and we're talking about civilians, naturally we're talking about a couple of core principles, distinction, who you can target, can target only lawful military objectives, combatants, members of organized armed groups, civilians who are directly participating and military objectives. We're talking about proportionality, right, the obligation to refrain from attacks where the expected civilian harm will be excessive relative to the anticipated military advantage gained. And we're talking about precautions, the obligation to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians when launching attacks that may cause harm to civilians or may affect the civilian population. We've spread out a little more broadly from attacks and targeting and we think about military operations. We also thinking about seizure and destruction of property, because often in the course of military operations property will be affected, even if it is not directly targeted in the context of military operations. And so we're thinking about what are the rules when engaged in military operations, and they're going to be some effects on civilian property. All of these things naturally come up in any hostilities in any conflict, and they are equally relevant in the context of operations in through or from outer space in counter space operations, and so on. In fact, space actually complicates some of the way we normally think about some of these questions in terms of applying and implementing the core principles and rules. So I just want to highlight a few of those areas and then we'll have a chance to talk about them more during the question answer and discussion period. The first one is thinking about what is a civilian object. Right civilian objects are protected from attack under the law of armed conflict only military objectives can be attacked. And so naturally we need to understand what is a civilian object what is a military objective. Karen's discussion has touched on this directly so I just want to highlight a couple of issues where things may be complicated. We need to understand military objectives obviously based on the definition objects that based on their nature location purpose or use making effective contribution to military action and whose destruction neutralization or capture offer a definite military advantage. So many space objects have military uses that we need to actually think about this in a discerning manner to ensure protection for objects that do not meet the definition of a military objective. Right, almost anything in space can be thought about it in a way that contributes to military action. And there is an enormous overlap between civilian and military uses of things in outer space and here we get to a term that's quite popular in discussions about objects. During our conflict the idea of dual use, which essentially refers to objects that were civilian objects and are being used for military purposes in some way which under the law makes them military objectives. So to think about what level of contribution to military action is sufficient to be an effective contribution to military action. When we have a satellite that is providing weather data or communication services, and it's mostly for the civilian population but clearly can be used for military purposes. So that is going to be generally sufficient in most cases to make it a military objective if it meets the rest of the test. But we have to start to think about where is the line, right, is it anything more than a de minimis de minimis contribution, or should we be thinking about something closer to significant. When we think about this, it has real consequences, both for the ability to neutralize and destroy the enemy's capabilities we don't want to be too narrow in our conception of what makes something a military objective, but also for the protection of civilians and the preservation of civilian infrastructure. It comes up significantly with respect to satellites that carry multiple payloads, one of which may be contributing to the adversaries capabilities in the conflict but the others may belong to countries not at all involved in the conflict. And so here we get the issue of severability which is quite challenging. So let's think about civilian harm a little bit here. Let's think about which civilians, because space objects can provide services, and therefore, the effects on those safe space objects can result in harm to civilians in many countries around the world. We tend to think about our civilians and enemy civilians, even though the law of armed conflict emphatically does not include such qualifications but it's naturally and kind of factually thinking about this. It doesn't really work when we're talking about objects and services and capabilities in outer space, because it's going to spread so far beyond the area of the conflict the effects on those space objects. So we might need to think a bit more about concentric circles or other conceptualizations for different layers of civilians how far out are we thinking about this civilian harm. This relates as well to the type of harm that we include in proportionality, and the idea of reverberating effects. And how when we think about foreseeability, does this change as technology continues to develop. The debris is an interesting example here. If we think about an attack on a satellite that hosts a military satellite communications node, we can think about the expected civilian harm to maybe other payloads on that satellite, or the disruption of services for civilians. But what about if we destroy it with an ASAP strike, and it creates orbital debris. We don't know what damage that debris will cause over time, or for how long, but we need to incorporate some of that harm into our proportionality assessment. But for how long for years for decades, we need to think hard about when that proportionality analysis stops. Finally, think about warnings. This kind of warning must be provided where feasible for attacks that may affect the civilian population. Does this include sustained and widespread loss of services, communication, navigation capabilities, and think about who needs to get this warning. But how far out do we need to think it's not just a warning in the territory of the adversary, we have to think on a global scale in this context. Space also raises interesting questions about what is civilian property in terms of military operations, but I think I have used up my time here so we'll have lots more to discuss during the question and answer. Thank you. I think I'm going to use a blank military operations and law of armed conflict and outer space, certainly present interesting questions when trying to apply the basic principles of the law of armed conflict to those operations, do the nature of the domain itself, and the nature of satellites and space systems. And hopefully we'll get into that a little bit more in the q amp a. Our next speaker is Professor Christopher Morgan, Professor Morgan is a professor of law and co director of the Center for international and comparative law at St. John's University School of law in New York City. He has served as co rapporteur for the International Law Association's committee on recognition and non recognition international law, and he co founded the blog opinion of yours. Professor Morgan, over to you. Hello, I'm Chris Morgan, and it's a pleasure to be here with you today. I'll be speaking about the law of neutrality, which is perhaps most associated with treaties from the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries. So what is its relevance in regards to military space activities. And we can begin by thinking about a scenario, assume that states and beer belligerence in an armed conflict state and is not a party to the conflict. May state and provide launch services for one of the parties or both may provide salad satellite military communication services to one or both parties may accompany incorporated in state and undertake either of these activities. And to consider questions such as this, I want to do essentially two things over the course of the next few minutes. The first is to consider the sources and content of the law of neutrality. And the second is to discuss or set out five challenges and applying the law of neutrality to space. So to begin with sources of the law of neutrality. As I mentioned before, it's perhaps most associated with the hate conventions from 1907 hate convention five dealing with land warfare and hate convention 13 dealing with naval warfare. So one of the issues that we're going to need to consider is whether and how they apply to space activities. And second, of course, there's customary international law. And here, even if we take that there's generation of customer international law in part from these treaties and as well as underlying customer international law that existed prior to the treaties. To what extent has customer international law also expanded to include space activities. So to begin by with context, we can consider the purposes of the law of neutrality. So there are a variety of purposes but I'll boil it down to two essentially. One of them is to decrease the risk of states of being drawn into being drawn into an armed conflict. The second is to provide recourse to belligerence if a supposedly neutral state does not meet its obligations as a neutral and actually becomes involved in an armed conflict. So how does the substance of the law of neutrality pursue these goals. The first is by allocation of neutral rights and related to that belligerent obligations that is the rights of neutral states. And the second is to consider what the obligations of neutral states are in relation to the belligerent. And when as we talk about this one of the things to always consider is what is the source of these rights and obligations. Is it treaty, or is it custom. In regards to the to the rights of neutral states, the perhaps the the central right that that is most focused on is that neutral territory and territorial waters are inviolable. They're not to be used by belligerent states in the midst of an armed conflict. Also, neutral persons and objects shall not be military objectives, except for under certain circumstances. And I'll talk about those in just a moment. In regards to the obligations of neutral states, I'll essentially focus on three. The first is impartiality neutral states aren't our neutral states are supposed to be impartial in relation to eat to the belligerence. They're not supposed to favor one over the other so you your neutral states should not be trying to sell should not be providing launch services to one belligerent, but denying them to another. The third is neutral states are to abstain from an armed conflict. They should not enter into it in some in some way such as perhaps selling or providing surveillance satellites to the military of one of the belligerents. And third, there's the obligation of prevention. If one of the belligerents tries to do something, which would actually be a violation of the neutral rights of a state. The neutral state has the obligation to try to prevent the belligerent from doing so. So if a belligerent was trying was attempting to build a satellite communication station in neutral territory that neutral state should try to prevent that. Now what if the neutral state breaches its neutral obligations it doesn't fulfill them. There's the possibility of self help by obliterance obliterance could actually then try to prevent say that that launch or it could try to prevent the construction of a satellite uplink station on neutral territory. There's the possible loss of neutral status by by the state. And there's the possibility of target ability and loss of neutral status of individual objects, but not of the state as a whole. So the issues of what level of violation you need to have for for there to be loss of status as a whole is something that jurists have discussed over the decades. That's the law of neutrality applying space from the nuclear weapons advisory opinion, we know that the ICJ has has stated that the principle of neutrality whatever its content is applicable to all international armed conflict. However, there are a variety of challenges in regards to the application of neutrality to space, and I want to discuss these briefly mentioned these five challenges for the time that I have remaining. The first challenge is the issue of domain specificity of the treaties as I mentioned before. Now, even though a convention might be specifically related to say land warfare. There can be aspects of space activities that are related to land warfare. So for example, an issue of the launch of a satellite originally occurs within the territory of a particular state. From the nexus to the existing domain, the domains of existing treaties. However, there's in terms of to the extent that it applies to those domains or whether it applies to activities in space is a question of the interpretation of those treaties and the intent of the parties. Second, related to this there's also the question of the generation of customer international law regarding space activities. Much in the same ways I was describing the issue of whether or not treaties actually involve domain specific treaties actually involve certain space activities. There's also the question in terms of the underlying customary rules of neutrality, and whether or not there is state practice to show that those rules also apply to space activities. So, within this there's this question of what state practice should apply in regards to space activities. If we see certain practice in regards to land or naval warfare, in terms of customary rules. Does that practice also extend to application in space or does it have to be specific activities in space that would only count for for the generation of customer international law in relation to neutrality in space. There's also the issue of territoriality and also nationality which I'll set aside for the moment. The issue of territoriality I touched upon a moment ago in relation to domain specific treaties. So here, it's the issue that in outer space. There's no, there's no national territory in outer space. It's not subject to national appropriation. So, in as much as existing treaties focus on territoriality that is the application of neutrality within the territory of state to neutral obligations and neutral rights apply. There is no when there is no territory. And in this we also have an issue in thinking about the sources of love neutrality and the doctrine of sources is the territorial emphasis in relation to the love neutrality due to the treaty language that we see in the treaties that we tend on which we tend to focus more than underlying customary rules that is our customary rules not just based on ideas of territoriality, but on ideas of conduct, which doesn't have to be specific to territory. Next, there's the issue of neutrality targeting and in particular its application to satellites. So as I mentioned before neutral persons and objects shall not be military objectives. However, they can be if an object may be targeted if it makes an effective contribution to military action, and it's destruction or neutralization would lead to a definite military advantage that's sort of the basic rules that we have in terms of targeting. Both the air and missile war manual and warfare manual and the San Remo manual note that in this catch all category, a neutral object may be targeted. Note the implications of this in regards to the target ability of satellites, satellites, which might be from a neutral state. But there if they're targeting would be an effective contributions military action, then even though they are satellites of a neutral state, they could be targeted. So this could have significant implications in regards to, to space warfare and the targeting of satellites, as many militaries use satellites or satellite services that are either from private companies, or, or at times might be might be provided by third states, hypothetically. And finally, there's the challenge of non state actors and responsibility. So the outer space treaty article six states a particular rule of responsibility in regards to space activities. And it notes that states parties to this treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including by non governmental entities. So this is a broader responsibility rule. Let's say the draft articles on state responsibility. So under these rules, which under this rule which is broader, can the actions of a non state actor be imputed to a state by the outer space treaty article six, such that a state is in violation of its neutral obligations. So consider for example a company providing satellite imaging to a belligerent without the knowledge of the neutral state. Under our under OST article six, this could potentially lead to the responsibility of the neutral state. In that situation, how does that affect potentially the neutral status of that state. So these were the main topics, which I discussed in terms of challenges that space might space activities might have in relation to neutrality. But we can think of these as being in a couple of main groups. One group has to do with issues having to do with the sources of law. So issues of treaty interpretation and evolve potentially the evolving meaning of treaties, or customary international law and what counts as state practice for space. And also issues of interactions with other legal regimes. So neutrality, and the law of targeting under international humanitarian law, or the law of state responsibility under the outer space treaty, and neutral obligations. So these sets of topics have to do really with thinking about the interaction of varying regimes of international law. The third main group would be essentially the question of thinking of whether we should frame the law of neutrality is being primarily territorial, or whether it's also conduct based, and whether there can be aspects of the law of neutrality that would be applied, even if it is not within the territory of a state, or within this, or within the territory of a state, but really having to do with the conduct of that state. So it's been a pleasure to be here with you today. And I look forward to the discussion. Thank you, Professor Morgan, and the presentation did a great job of exemplifying that not only is it difficult to apply established rules of law to military operations and outer space. But it can also be difficult to determine exactly what law applies to military operations in outer space. And the final speaker for today is Squadron Leader Karen Tinkler, who has been one of the primary organizers of this conference and has been involved throughout Squadron Leader Tinkler is a legal officer with the Royal Air Force, and currently a military professor at the Stockton Center for International Law US Naval War College Squadron Leader Tinkler, over to you. Thank you, Mike. So the focus of my presentation today is, as said out there, so what objects can be attacked in outer space? Slide please. Thank you. So, the scope of my presentation is going to be split into three parts. Firstly, I'm going to quickly canter through why military objectives that concept is relevant to objects in outer space. So I'm going to quickly touch on why even the notion of an object can be controversial in this context, and then really focus on this termed dual use which have heard people throughout the conference mentioned. I'll try and clarify a few things related to that slide please. Okay, so military objective slide. So as mentioned by the two previous speakers, that's the definition of military objective. It's generally recognized as a two prong test. It's set out in bold there, and clearly they're very much interrelated. So if the destruction of an object offers my military definite advantage, it's very likely that's because it has an effective contribution to the enemies of military action, but it is a two prong test. And just to confirm, this test is only relevant to attacks. So there is a military operation short of an attack that testing military objective is in opposite slide. Okay, so before we get into to kind of meet the substance quickly just need to establish why we're even talking about a provision that's in a digital protocol one. So I've got a picture there because AP one was really a belated attempt to deal with bombing from aircraft room or two that was its principal focus in terms of regulating the conduct of aesthetics. AP one and applies to international conflict. AP one has not been ratified or a CD to buy the United States Israel, India, Pakistan, etc, although majority states have done so. And also the article 493 says that the term military objective only relates to targets on land or where objects that maybe targeted would affect civilians or may affect civilians on land. And that can be circumvented if we establish it as a customer of us of international that applies to outer space. And if we look at experts in the areas of naval warfare, air warfare, and more recently cyber warfare. There's a general coalescence around this test in article 52 to that is a treat revision but it reflects customer international across all forms of warfare. Okay, so having established why we're, we're focusing on a specific treat provision it's because it's customary and it applies across domains. So, normally when you're thinking of targeting what is an object is self explanatory so why, why have I brought up what is an object. The first thing to mention is that in international space law, the liability convention the registration look to define what a space object is that somewhat circular definition is irrelevant here. The law of armed conflict is a specialized body of law and we don't need to concern ourselves with that but but just to clarify. And why I raised the question what is an object well, a paradigm example of this being an issue in space is the concept of a hosted payload so a satellite is comprised of a bus and various subsystems, and you can have multiple payloads on it. You could have the satellite owned operated registered etc in state a, but state these military may have a payload that's hosted on that satellite. And in that case, are there two objects or one object and this is relevant to how we think about precautions and attacking proportionality applied to that object or multiple objects. And if the prevailing views that prevailing views sorry is that any separate and distinct items would be different objects of the purposes of an object in in the law of armed conflict. Then I would suggest a hosted payload doesn't fit into that kind of thinking, because a hosted payload is dependent on this on the energy source from the satellite and various other subsystems they're not clear. So if you wanted to get to the position, they're separate objects, then we would have to think again on how we consider that kind of question. And then also, we've had in cyber operations discussions everywhere the data isn't is a is an object or not. And when we see discussions of people looking at whether an orbit, for example, can be a military objective by location. We have to ask ourselves is an orbit a tangible thing. And is it a location per se, or is it a condition of physical condition. And also the questions like that. So these are some of the questions that are being addressed in the womb or manual, but that's not the focus of my presentation here I just raise it for interest so slide please. So Joe Joe use technology we've seen Dr. Laura Gregor talk about Joe use in technology and I think she's you saw it inherently Joe use a lot of military space technology. And many of the other speakers have talked about Joe use. So, when people in policy, sorry in space technology in space policy will talk about Joe use and the Joe use problem. What they're referring to is how any space technology can potentially has the capacity to be used for military purposes. Next slide. Okay, so if people talking in space policy circles, etc. refer to Joe use as being anything with the capacity or capability of being used military purposes problematic. We've also come out with many commentators, although not necessarily the mootie. How did you know that they clear Joe use object is it's so facto a military objective. So I'm going to, I'm going to clarify that's not the case. Next slide. Okay, so the law of our conflict. There's nothing in there, nothing in any treaty that has this term Joe use. That may be a military term in context of armed conflicts and where it's relevant as you might see it in rules being, for example, the delegated authority of a commander to approve a strike. If the item in question is Joe use because of sort of policy sensitivities around such objects, collateral damage estimation methodology may address Joe use objects and potentially could have use objects on them. This is a term that is detached from the law of armed conflict. It certainly creeps in decisions when we're looking at military objective. And what I want to stress here is, is not a misnomer. You know, the term Joe use is focused on use and really the proper meaning of Joe use in military military terms is something that has a concurrent civilian and military. So it is not sufficient. It's a military term normally. It's something that has a potential use. Joe use object. Now that's different discussion space policy and technology circles where it's perfectly legitimate right to say that objects can have a joy use this delta between possible use in that context, and how joy uses used in military circles in the context of arms complex slide. Thank you. Yes, by even those people who are talking about the arm on conflict. So here we've got two examples of found one is a human rights watch publication that dealt with the 2003 rock campaign, and they say how joy's facilities are those that can can have a military application. Likewise, the report. I see T why on the NATO campaign in former Yugoslavia. Also, when looking at the concept of joy use said they are objects that have some potential military use. I would suggest this is inaccurate. The next slide please. Okay. So joy use. Currently concurrently military and civilian use has different meanings in different contexts in terms of arms control and military circles in our conflict. And why this is a concern is if we get the wrong meaning of joy use, and particularly if we say that a joy use object she objective. One has to apply the test on school 52 to to each case. So therefore, here, what's set up set out in NATO doctrine on joint targeting this is this is the correct position. So here it says the joy use objects must be careful analyze so in times wrong time to use that the phrase illogen ask 52 to and based on the circumstances, we have to determine if a joy use object is a military objective so you have to think through a definite military advantage effect to confusion to military action. Now in most cases if something's being used by the military, it will amount to it will amount to military objective, but we can't say automatically that a joy use object is, and we have to be cognizant of when we say joy use we mean something that is being concurrently used not potentially or has potential military use. So for example, anything, anything can be used potentially by the military. I've had the unfortunate circumstance of advising on ISIS using ambulances as vehicle born I IDs. And that is not a joy use object that has become a military objective but that's just to highlight that anything can pass the potential to be used military purposes that doesn't make it a joy use object and it certainly doesn't necessarily make it a military objective unless it is being used. And that's fine. Next slide. Okay, so to wrap up. I think the ship is sailed on not using joy use in law of our conflict discussions. I do think it can cause confusion. So just advocate the great great accuracy and when we use to tend to use in the context of conflict totally legitimate. And I've updated joy use in their specific text, but in the context of our conflict joy use has a narrow meaning. And then also, we shouldn't state a joy use as a military objective, even if in most cases it would be without a wrap up so we've got time for questions thank you. Thank you for your presentation and for all of your efforts and organizing the organizing the conference we do have some q amp a I apologize for more. A question from Wolf and I apologize if I pronounced this wrong wolf but will find show. This is this is for you Chris and I'm going to summarize the question. So the law of neutrality is primarily about protecting the territorial sovereignty of neutral states. So how is it relevant for situations other than space operations, potentially infringing about the territorial sovereignty of neutral states. And, and thank you for that question will find I should note for everyone that will have written a fantastic article on space operations and neutrality that was in international law studies. I think from 2017. So, a couple of quick comments in relation to this so the, as I'd mentioned, the, a lot of the law of neutrality is territorially based and part of this has to do part of the question has to do with. And then there are activities that have a territorial relationship, such as if you're using a satellite downlink station that is within the territory of a neutral state, whether or not, whether and how the law of neutrality applies to that. Now I think the question that that will particularly pointing to is whether or not there would be a law of neutrality that would apply to things that are in space and outside of the territory of, of, of any state. So here I would say this goes back to one of the comments I had in terms of conduct based activities versus territorially based. And I do take the view that part of the law of neutrality has to do with conduct that is there can be you know airplanes from a neutral state outside of neutral space states territory, and there are certain rights of neutrality in regards to those planes or to ships or so on. Now the problem, as people would immediately note is that the, the laws that we have in terms of flagging planes or ships is not the rules that we have in terms of registration of space objects and that many space objects have have used by multiple parties. And you can look back to the discussions from the previous panel in terms of this. So, in that sense, I basically pose this as sort of the question, which is, do we actually have adequate clarity in terms of the interpretation of treaties or in terms of customer international law in terms of stating whether or not there are actually no neutral obligations or neutral rights in relation to objects that are in space. To understood that a lot of times activities that relate to satellites will also have an aspect that will be territorially based or at least something that would be within a territorial nexus so you could have the law of neutrality that could apply in that way. But in regards to the space activities. Here we get to the question of how far do the treaties apply in terms of the intention of the party and in their interpretation, and how far does customer international law apply. And what evidence do we have in regards to this, but I'll, I'll perhaps have a chance to sort of loop back around to this in a moment I don't want to take up too much time. So I'll leave it to the next question. Thank you, Professor Borgen. Spot on the tinkler we have a question from Linda whole be that I think probably as best post you and I asked Professor blank if you had anything to add to chime in, and this whole be I'm going to summarize as well. So in relation to deal use technologies, is there a burden to prove concurrent use and I think that means concurrent use by military and civil activities. Is there a way to prove concurrent use to make it a legitimate military objective. And then the follow on, if an adversary understands this, and uses the asset intermittently for military purposes, does that provide some kind of loophole. Okay, so I guess what I was advocating for my in my presentation is that when we're trying to think about what some military jet if we just ignore the term draw use. And what I would say is that probably the biggest question related to this is the purpose criteria in the article 52 to so. If the intended future use of an object would effectively contribute to military action is legitimate to to attack it. And I guess the biggest controversy there potentially is the wording utilised in the deal or manual. The deal or all manual says that purpose means the intended or possible use in future of an object. Now I do think that phraseology or possible is intended by the duty manual to be as wide as one could read it. And why do I say that I say that because it sites the UK manual and the Australian manual on the exact point. Now that the UK manual directly sites the ICRC commentary. And all of those say limited to intended future use. So I'd say possible possible use is not quite correct. So let's go back to the question. Is there in terms of concurrent use is the burden of proof. You're really looking at. If there's a reasonable belief so using the phrasing and Gallagher is a reasonable belief that something is a military objective. And a certain certain types of objects that is a rule of doubt in in article 52 of AP one, whether that's customary not as controversial and the degree of doubt is controversial as well. So hopefully that partly answers your question not fully. Thanks for the particular Professor blank. Did you have anything to have. Thanks so much. So I agree completely with Karen that the word or the term dual use is purely descriptive and it actually, I think in addition to not having any particular meaning or value in low act it actually is detrimental. Because it makes it seem like there's some third category that you have civilian objects and military objects and oh you have these dual use objects, and we have to have some separate rule for them, which is not the case at all. I think what's so to get at that question of what if they're using it intermittently. I mean, I think we, we don't want to get ourselves to tangled up and we should think about how the definition of military objective works. Let's call it an in ordinary practice or an earthly practice. And you have an object, and if it satisfies the definition, then it's a military objective. Now let's say that the next step is before targeting, right we have to think about precautions and we have to verify that it is a military objective. So, that brings to us to two things. If in fact, it was a military objective and then when we get to that step of verification, assuming we're not in a sort of dynamic targeting situation but more in a pre planned or deliberate targeting situation. If upon that step of verification, it's not a military objective at that time, we have a different circumstance. Now we get to that question of intermittent use and here we get to really thinking about the criteria of purpose in the definition of military objective. And the fact that it's been used before for this purpose, and you have a belief that it's intended future use is is also going to be falling within the category of military objective, then the intermittence of it doesn't doesn't change the calculus it's different from the concept of civilians directly participating in hostilities, or we don't have any concept of intended future participation, civilians who are DPH it's for such time. The definition of military objective is different. The idea of purpose is fundamentally different from the idea of for such time with DPH. So I think one of the challenges here is thinking about what this means. And in essence, whether there are objects in space that actually would not ever satisfy some of those criteria in the definition of military objective. Because, based on what we understand, for example, from Dr. Grego's lecture earlier, and from the other other panelists and just our understanding of what's going on in the outer space. There's not much there, as Karen slide showed that isn't either used for military purposes or susceptible to being used for military purposes. Thank you, Professor blank. I know we're pressing up against time do we have time to take one more question. You do go right ahead Thank you. All right, thanks. This question comes from James, excuse me again on the pronunciation James shotler says the most recent version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision requiring the US to leverage domestic commercial geospatial intelligence to the extent practical processing practicability of using commercial services should the United States Department of Defense take into account potential that greater military use of these capabilities increases the risk of satellites being traded as military objectives. And I will throw that out to the panel to anyone who might like to take it on. So, yeah, so it's been official US policy for a while to where where possible to leverage commercial capability rather than to sort of publicly fun purely publicly fun satellites. I think as long as as long as the US goes into it with its eyes open which which I'm sure it does. These commercial satellites, you know, would be considered military objectives if they're if the services they provide a being directly used by by its military. That's fine. And that's that's perfectly legitimate. For example, there are, there are passive precautions in attack under article with day of AP one, and those types of considerations I don't think would prevent a state for example, and doing those types of activities or indeed putting hosted payloads on other states satellites or commercial satellites, and because of the sheer cost of space. Those obligations wouldn't wouldn't kick in there in my opinion. Thank you squatters need to take or any other comments on that question. Yeah, I'll just add, I think, as a very brief answer to the question. Yes, I guess would be my brief answer to the question, which is that. Yes, they are at significantly increased risk of being military objectives. And I think DoD should be taking that into account. And I think it raises a question of what is the nature of the communication between DoD and these commercial services, in terms of explaining the consequence we're going to ask you to, you know, engage in this way and oh by the way, you should know that this is a consequence of it. And there may then be even follow on pieces. Here's, here's what this means. Here's how perhaps you can stay short of that, or here's how we can provide some additional protection in the form of the type of passive precautions that Karen is talking about. But this is I think an essential piece of the conversation. It is fairly obvious to, to, again, use an analogy on terra firma that if you asked a some type of factory to start making fighter jets when they used to make, I don't know, you know, cars, or to start making uniforms when they used to make sweaters. But I think it would be fairly obvious to the folks who own and work in that factory. They might not think of it in the legal term of military objective, but they certainly would think, huh, this is probably something the enemy might want to destroy in the context of this armed conflict because we're making something pretty obviously that the military is going to use in that sort of common sense understanding. I don't know to what extent that same common sense understanding has permeated the into our understanding in terms of thinking about outer space. Again in that layperson space. And so I think as a moral matter, not getting to a legal matter but as a moral question as a decency as a basic public policy question. I think it would be incumbent upon the government to introduce that into conversation. Unfortunately, I believe that's all the time that we have. I thank you to the audience for the questions. A special thanks to all three panel members for their presentations and their insightful comments to the questions and I turn it back over to our host. Thank you very much, Mr overstand for moderating that wonderful panel and thank you as well to Professor blank and Professor Morgan and my stock and center bullpen made the squadron leader Tinkler for their terrific presentations at this time ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to invite closing remarks from Professor James Kraska the chair and Charles each stock and professor of international maritime law at the stock and center Professor Kraska. Thank you, Elton, and thank you to our moderators and panelists for today. Special thanks to Doug Burnett for his fantastic presentation on submarine cables and security, and also thank you today to everybody who participated in these panels on conflict and outer space, quite literally the final frontier in these challenges of the application of international law and military operations. I'd like to thank all of our speakers and moderators and panelists over the past three days, your contributions are adding compelling and practical substance to understanding, and even shaping the trajectory of international law as it relates to technology. You've been among about 500 participants actually more than 500 participants from around the world, including a number of groups of people that have joined from Japan, from India, the Philippines, and of course throughout Europe and North America. All of these proceedings will be available on the Naval War College YouTube website, and you'll be able to find a link to that at the Naval War College events page the same page that announced this this conference. As Admiral Chatfield mentioned on the first day in her opening comments, some of the excellent contributions that you've heard here over the past three days will be published in volume 97 of international law studies, the Journal of International Law at the Stockton Center, also the oldest Journal of International Law in the United States. And in fact, some of you have already published articles, either in this year volume 96 or in past years with international law studies. We invite you to go to the ILS webpage. You can see this year we've had 21 articles, and we are already set to have about 10 or 11 articles from this conference. Thanks. Finally, to our wonderful co-sponsors, we really have enjoyed working with you on this and another events, in particular, the Paul Seiss China Center at Yale Law School, thank you very much. The U.S. Army National Security Law Division, the Lieber Center, the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare at West Point, the U.S. Military Academy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy. Your great friends and colleagues and fantastic to be able to partner with you in this event and we hope to do so more events in the future. Thanks also to Squadron Leader Tinkler and Lieutenant Colonel John Cherry, who really were the nuts and bolts behind this that helped put it together. And they worked closely with our special events staff at the Naval War College, which are really world-class, and we find that they're even more essential for these online events, even so than in our in-person events when they've always been so helpful. Thank you to everybody, all of the 500-plus participants for your questions and for your attention, which meaningfully advanced our conversation. And finally, I'll close with this. We only do a couple of large events every year. We do a number of small events every year. We look to our international law studies for the scholarship that is coming out of them. Our next big event is the Cushing Conference on International Law and Conflict at Sea. And that will be held May 17 to 19, May 17 to 19. And so we thank you for your attention and for your participation, and the proceedings are adjourned. Have a wonderful day.