South Korean professor on updating space law — Korea Herald
In South Korea, Lee Jae Min, a law professor at Seoul National University, expressed the view that international space law needs to be updated due to the development of commercial projects, including orbital data processing centers. In a column for Korea Herald, he noted that the current rules were shaped at a time when space activities were mainly carried out by states and their agencies.
The new role of business
The author describes a transition to the New Space model, under which private companies play an increasingly prominent role in space programs, while state institutions cooperate with business. In his assessment, companies have significant financial, technological, and human resources, while the pursuit of profit encourages them to introduce innovations and make decisions more quickly.
Lee Jae Min named space data centers as one of the new areas of New Space. He links interest in them to the rapid development of artificial intelligence, which requires substantial computing power. In the author's view, supplying such centers with energy and cooling them on Earth are becoming increasingly difficult. He also wrote that orbital data processing centers are already one of the priority areas of South Korea's New Space initiative.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Legal issues
The professor recalled that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty established basic rules for activities beyond Earth's atmosphere during the period of space rivalry between the United States and the USSR. In his view, this legal regime did not take into account the possibility of large-scale commercial activities by private companies in space.
Lee Jae Min noted that the current principles regard outer space as the common heritage of humanity and do not allow its appropriation by states. He raised questions about the possible distribution of commercial revenues, the strategic value of data that will be stored in orbit, and the use of this data for new business projects. The author believes that such issues may cause legal conflicts, while major states will promote their own approaches to updating the rules.
