• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.419-477
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• 2017

In Space contains valuable natural resources. These provide a compelling reason for entrepreneurs, investors, and governments to pursue space exploration and settlement. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet. Article II of the Outer Space Treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." The U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 (CSLCA), however, makes significant advances in furthering U.S. commercial space industry, which explicitly allows U.S. citizens to engage in the commercial exploration and exploitation of 'space resources' including water and minerals. Thus, some scholars argue that the United States recognizing ownership of space resources is an act of sovereignty, and that the act violates the Outer Space Treaty. This paper suggests that it is necessary to guarantee the right to resources harvested in outer space. More specifically, a private ownership of extracted space resources needs to promote new space business and industry. As resources on Earth become increasingly difficult and expensive to mine, it is clear that our laws and policies must encourage private appropriation of space resources. CSLCA which addresses all aspects of space resource extraction will be one way to encourage space commercial activity.

• IE interfaces
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.78-86
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• 2011

To mitigate space restriction and to raise productivity, some shipbuilding companies use floating-docks on the sea instead of dry-docks on the land. In that case, a floating-crane that can lift very heavy objects (up to 3,600 tons) is used to handle the blocks which are the basic units in shipbuilding processes, and so, very large blocks (these are called the mega-blocks) can be used to build a ship. But, because these mega-blocks can be made only in the area near the floating-dock and beside the sea, the space is very important resource for the process. Therefore, our problem is to make an efficient spatial schedule for the mega-block assembly yard. First of all, we formulate this situation into a mathematical model and find optimal solution for a small problem using a commercial optimization software. But, the software could not give optimal solutions for practical sized problems in a reasonable time, and so we propose a GA-based heuristic algorithm. Through a numerical experiment, finally, we show that the spatial scheduling algorithm can provide a very good performance.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.87-107
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• 2005

Land Remote Sensing' is defined as the science (and to some extent, art) of acquiring information about the Earth's surface without actually being in contact with it. Narrowly speaking, this is done by sensing and recording reflected or emitted energy and processing, analyzing, and applying that information. Remote sensing technology was initially developed with certain purposes in mind ie. military and environmental observation. However, after 1970s, as these high-technologies were taught to private industries, remote sensing began to be more commercialized. Recently, we are witnessing a 0.61-meter high-resolution satellite image on a free market. While privatization of land remote sensing has enabled one to use this information for disaster prevention, map creation, resource exploration and more, it can also create serious threat to a sensed nation's national security, if such high resolution images fall into a hostile group ie. terrorists. The United States, a leading nation for land remote sensing technology, has been preparing and developing legislative control measures against the remote sensing industry, and has successfully created various policies to do so. Through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's authority under the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act, the US can restrict sensing and recording of resolution of 0.5 meter or better, and prohibit distributing/circulating any images for the first 24 hours. In 1994, Presidential Decision Directive 23 ordered a 'Shutter Control' policy that details heightened level of restriction from sensing to commercializing such sensitive data. The Directive 23 was even more strengthened in 2003 when the Congress passed US Commercial Remote Sensing Policy. These policies allow Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State to set up guidelines in authorizing land remote sensing, and to limit sensing and distributing satellite images in the name of the national security - US government can use the civilian remote sensing systems when needed for the national security purpose. The fact that the world's leading aerospace technology country acknowledged the magnitude of land remote sensing in the context of national security, and it has made and is making much effort to create necessary legislative measures to control the powerful technology gives much suggestions to our divided Korean peninsula. We, too, must continue working on the Korea National Space Development Act and laws to develop the necessary policies to ensure not only the development of space industry, but also to ensure the national security.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.93-125
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• 2011

The International Civil Aviation Convention (Chicago Convention) has been a backbone of international air transport system whereby air transport between States should be based on bilateral agreements, and in particular, international airfares, which are set up through IATA(International Air Transport Association) rate-fixing machinery could be approved by the governments concerned. International airfares are fares for transporting passenger and freight and their conditions between two or more countries. However, since U.S. pursued th deregulation policy in 1978 whereby routes, capacity and fares could be freely determined by airlines, many States have been following so called open-skies agreements. In many cases, aeronautical and competent authorities have been reviewing whether airlines' commercial activities including air fares could possibly conflict with free competition rules envisaged in relevant laws and regulations. As competition among airlines gets intense, airlines often resort to cooperation with other airlines in the forms such as equity exchange, M&A, code-sharing, fares consultation and resource pooling, mainly with a view to effectively use resources available and to avoid monopoly situation resulting from excessive and destructive competition among players. Whereas bearing in mind that application of competition laws is important to secure consumers' interests by preventing airlines's malpractices such as bargaining exorbitant fares, it is also important to comprehensively consider as many factors as possible, from that unilateral measure by governments may bring about retaliatory measures by the governments affected, to that airlines' cooperative practices may rather increase consumers' benefits by lowering air fares.