Remote Sensing Law: An Overview of its Development and its Trajectory in the Global Context

Abstract

The law relating to remote sensing is a complex mix of international and national laws, regulations, policies, and agreements. This body of remote sensing law has numerous facets that regulate a number of uses of remote sensing satellites, related technology, and collected data. This chapter serves as a survey of the laws and regulations that governs remote sensing activities across a variety of applications and a variety of legal spaces. This overview of remote sensing law asserts that there are essentially four bodies of law that govern remote sensing and define its regulatory regime. These are not distinct bodies; they overlap and intersect with each other. The typology is not intended to obscure these interactions but instead to serve as an explanatory framework. This chapter will address each of these bodies of law chronologically in the order in which each emerged, though it will not attempt to identify the specific temporal locations due to the fluidity and subjectivity of such assignments.

Keywords: Space Law, Remote Sensing, Earth Observation