Responding to Social Harm Caused by Space Technology

The dissertation, under which this empirical project was carried out, is titled Responding to Social Harm Caused by Space Technology and it examines the relationship between the social harm caused by space technology and the legal framework governing issues related to human activity in outer space. In addressing social harm it draws on approaches from critical criminology, zemiology, green and astro-green criminology, and astrocriminology, which go beyond the traditional focus on criminal or unlawful conduct and instead emphasize the concept of harmfulness. Based on these approaches, the study establishes various categories of harm arising from the development and use of space technology. The analysis of the legal framework takes place at three different levels—the international, regional (with an emphasis on the European context), and national levels— covering both »hard« law instruments as well as numerous »soft« law instruments and more recent sui generis instruments that were drafted outside established legislative processes and whose legal nature is not yet defined. The analysis of the effectiveness of the legal framework is not conducted solely through an examination of the legally codified content, but also through other criteria that more precisely reveal how such content is treated and respected in practice. Through an analysis of effectiveness, the dissertation highlights the intersections and divergences between the spheres of harm and illegality and, based on these findings, identifies the main shortcomings of the existing legal framework governing issues related to space technology, and offers reflections and proposals for improving the legal framework. In doing so, it delves into the question of whether legal regulation can actually be understood as a separate response to social harm or whether it is simultaneously an inherent part of it, thereby opening up a discussion on the broader relationship between law and rapidly evolving technology.