Professor Frans von der Dunk wrote the Handbook of Space Law to be released in February. The forthcoming publication of the brand new Handbook of Space Law occurs in a time frame in which the applications of space are expanding at a rapid pace, and legal issues are becoming more and more frequent and important. As Rusty Schweickart of Apollo-9 fame states in his Preface to the Handbook: “As an astronaut I never expected to be interested in, let alone involved in, space law (…). But that was back when I was the payload and not the purveyor.” Since those early days of Sputnik and Apollo, of course, mankind has only continued to extend its presence in outer space. This has occurred to some extent by way of physical human presence in outer space, but much more so by remote controlled devices which increasingly determine our every-day life access to communication and navigation services, to national and international security, to environmental and scientific information about the Earth and a dearth of other largely invisible but increasingly crucial services and products. And wherever man goes, whether by remote control or in person, the law must follow to shape some kind of order, predictability and even a measure of justice in the context of his activities. This is of course what space law is all about nowadays, and this is what the Handbook intends to analyze and elucidate.
Offering the most comprehensive and holistic analysis on legal and regulatory aspects of space activities and major space applications to date, the Handbook thus addresses the legal and regulatory aspects of activities in outer space and major space applications from a comprehensive and structured perspective, notably from that of the dichotomy between the state-oriented character of international space law and the increasing commercialization and privatization of space activities – the most fundamental paradigm-shift that took place in outer space activities ever since the space era took off. The book therefore focuses on international space law in the broadest sense
of the word, not only including the key space treaties and international customary (space) law, but also the many specialized regimes such as those applicable to the international satellite organizations, the International Space Station, the international trade and the security-sensitive aspects of space technology exports, the financing of space ventures and environmental concerns. The multifaceted approach to the Handbook leads it to comprise a few main sections, which address their respective subject-matter from a few fundamentally different and cross-cutting angles.