Abstract

The exponential increase in space debris presents a growing threat not only to the functional spacecraft and satellite infrastructure but also to the orbital environment. With the increase in space activities originating from commercial ventures and states, Earth's orbital space has become congested and increasingly unsafe with the accumulation of defunct satellites, fragments of spent rockets, and debris created by collisions. The paper touches upon space debris from an environmental law perspective and assesses whether the current legal framework can deal with this emerging problem. Though treaties like the Outer Space Treaty (1967) and the Liability Convention (1972) provide the basic international norms for governance of activities in space, they do not contain any binding obligations for debris mitigation or environmental protection in outer space. Other non-binding instruments-the UNCOPUOS Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines and the Long-Term Sustainability Guidelines-remain mere recommendations without enforcement capacity. Principles of environmental law like precautionary principle, polluter pays principle, and sustainable development have hardly found any application in space governance due to jurisdiction It also surveys national approaches, highlighting how local regulations are working against global efforts due to their disparities. In the vacuum of an enforceable international treaty regulating space debris, this regulatory vacuum might lead to on-orbit environmental degradation similar to what we have witnessed on Earth. The study ends by proposing a legal framework in which space law could be integrated with environmental principles to advance the enactment of a binding multilateral treaty and universally accepted standards for debris mitigation with the inclusion of environmental impact assessments. Some remediation of orbital pollution as an environmental hazard is necessitated for the sustenance of space activities into the future.

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