Project on Space Laws and Policies in South Asia
Research Question | Project Participants and Contributors | Expected Outcome
Introduction
The South Asia region of the world comprises of 8 countries, namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. With a combined population of nearly 2 billion, it hosts about one-fourth of all humanity, and this large population lives on only 3.5% of the land surface area of the world. More importantly, the region’s share of global economy is as little as 4.21%. Chronic overpopulation and underdevelopment places immense pressures on land, water and resources, and heightens socio-economic inequalities, and hinders good governance in the region. Irrespective of the efforts of these countries in promoting of regional geopolitical and economic cooperation, mainly through the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), they collectively and individually lack sufficient resources and development in their socio-economic condition to serve the needs of their populations.
Adopted in 2015, the United Nations’ the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for the achievement of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which could help end poverty, improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs has underlined that appropriate space technologies employed through well-defined national and regional programs could help in the attainment of over 11 of these 17 SDGs, which in turn, heavily depends upon the appropriate adoption and implementation of national laws and policies that are conducive to SDGs.
To briefly highlight a few benefits that can be derived from space applications and technologies:
- Address the immense challenge of food insecurity
Space technology has become a vital tool for agriculture by providing value to farmers, agronomists, and food manufacturers through the monitoring of crop development, rainfall assessment and drought conditions, and also provide critical data towards anticipation and mitigation of food shortages. Moreover, Earth observation data can support regional as well as international efforts to target and mitigate the risk of food insecurity in these countries.
- Attainment of global health objectives
Primary aspects of application of satellite or space technology in this respect includes tele-medicine, tele-health, disease surveillance systems and health mapping.
- Telecommunications and access to the internet
Emerging technologies have the ability of transforming telecommunication by utilizing low/medium altitude satellites and using unused portions of the radiofrequency spectrum. Likewise, satellite internet will play an extremely crucial role in providing internet access to unserved areas, including high altitude and mountainous regions in some of the South Asian nations.
- Disaster Relief and Risk Mitigation
As an example, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 calls for the promotion and enhanced use of space and in-situ information through geospatial and space-based technologies to collect, analyse and disseminate data. The framework recognizes the role of space applications and technologies in supporting risk-informed decision-making. Likewise, space technology, being used under the aegis of the Charter on Cooperation to Achieve the Coordinated Use of Space Facilities in the Event of Natural or Technological Disasters, has seen numerous activations to prevent and mitigate the loss of human lives.
- Natural Resource and Management of the Environment
Currently, there are over 170 Earth observation satellites, including over 30 weather satellites, operated by 62 and more operating agencies. They play an essential role in management of natural resources and the environment.
Research question/focus
The project intends to critically examine the current domestic legal and policy frameworks of some South Asian countries (namely, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) to see how their socio-economic development can be enhanced with the use of space technologies and space programmes. The project will suggest the appropriate legal and regulatory mechanism for consideration by respective governments of these countries, and will come up with a model national space law of a selected country.
This doctrinal research project will examine the socio-economic impacts of limiting access to space technology to a limited number of privileged users, and highlight the beneficial impact of making use of space technology to achieve immense well-being through an inclusive approach. During the adoption of the UN SDG Agenda 2030, world leaders took to widely to propagating the slogan “leaving no one behind”. ‘Accessibility’ has become a cornerstone of the SDGs, as in order to bring the stated goals to fruition. However, in the space sector, access to technology has been constrained by several national policy and regulatory barriers. Thus, in understanding and addressing these barriers that prevent equity in the utilization of space, one can better understand and address the nuances that currently act as a hindrance for SAARC nations from making full use of this sector to attain well-being for one and all.
Project Participants and Contributors
Host Institution: Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University.
Project Advisors:
Dr Joseph Pelton (General)
Dr. Tanveer Ahmad (Bangladesh)
Dr. Lasantha Hettiarachchi (Sri Lanka)
Dr. Ranjana Kaul (India)
Research Director:
Prof. Ram S. Jakhu, Full Professor at the Faculty of Law, Former Director Institute of Air and Space Law
Research Team:
Research Coordinator: Dr. Upasana Dasgupta
Research Team Member: Dr. Shakeel Ahmad
Research Team Member: Nishith Mishra
Research Assistant: Tamoghna Agasti
Funding:
The Erin J. C. Arsenault Trust Fund at the Faculty of Law, McGill University
Expected Outcome
Project Output: Book to be co-authored by the Research Team.
The expected outcome of this research endeavour is to provide:
- cogent reasoning and analysis towards the potential of space applications for socio-economic development;
- legal and regulatory inputs (including a potential draft legislation (model law) for one or two of the countries);
- country-specific inputs towards development of their respective space policies towards:
(a) creating awareness and knowledge base,
(b) proposing methods to deal with and adapt to barriers in the use of space applications and technologies,
(c) identifying elements of regional and international co-operation in the space sector,
(d) inter-operability of space technologies with other domains and terrestrial technologies, to name a few; and
e) the overall objective of evaluating ways and mechanisms in which space applications and technologies could be suitably launched, adapted, or implemented in these countries to assist in attainment of the UN SDG Agenda 2030 objectives.
For more information, please contact Upasana Dasgupta (upasana.dasgupta [at] mail.mcgill.ca (upasana.dasgupta[@]mail.mcgill.ca)); Maria D’Amico (maria.damico [at] mcgill.ca (maria.damico[@]mcgill.ca)) or Professor Ram S. Jakhu (ram.jakhu [at] mcgill.ca (ram.jakhu[@]mcgill.ca))