2. REMAT Session 6
Emerging Modes of Aerospace Transportation and the Delimitation between Airspace and Outer Space: A Chinese Perspective Dr. Jinyuan Su

3. Airspace and Outer Space Regimes
Outer space: free for exploration and use
Airspace: complete and exclusive sovereignty

4. The Delimitation
International law
Outer space law
Air law

5. The Delimitation Annexes, The Chicago Convention
Aircraft as “comprising any machine that can derive support in the atmosphere from the reactions of the air other than the reactions of the air against the Earth’s surface”.

6. The Delimitation
96 km
21 km

7. The Delimitation Domestic Law
2002 Amendment to Australian Space Activities Act 1998: 100 km
Belarus: 20,100 meters
Serbia: 2 million km

8. The Delimitation China Civil Aviation Law of the PRC
The Registration Measures
The Permits Measures

9. The Delimitation The Registration Measures of China
Space objects: artificial satellites, crewed spacecraft, space explorers, space stations, the launching vehicles and parts thereof, and other man-made objects launched into outer space.
Not space objects: sounding rockets and ballistic missiles that temporarily cross outer space.

10. The Delimitation The spatialist approach The functionalist approach
China

11. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
The long-lasting lack of a clear boundary between airspace and outer space
The challenge of emerging modes of aerospace transportation

12. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
The COPUOS Questionnaire
The applicable law of aerospace objects
The applicable law of aerospace objects through foreign airspace

13. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
The COPUOS Questionnaire
China: “We welcome that the Subcommittee further review the definition and delimitation of outer space, taking into account all issues involved with sub-orbit, flights and aerospace flights.”

14. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
The COPUOS Questionnaire
China does not have aerospace transportation systems in shape.
Aerospace objects launched from and returning to America and Europe do not seem to have cut through its airspace due to the long distance.

15. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
The COPUOS Questionnaire
The policy on emerging modes of aerospace transportation may incur implications on other issues regarding air law or space law.

16. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
The applicable law of aerospace objects
Functionalists
Spatialists

17. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
The applicable law of aerospace objects through foreign airspace
Functionalists
Spatialists
China

18. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
ICAO: “…current commercial activities envisage sub-orbital flights departing from and landing at the same place, which may not entail the crossing of foreign airspaces”

19. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation

20. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
What is the scope of “airspace”?

21. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
China
PPWT: outer space as “the space above the Earth in excess of 100 km above sea level”.
The passage of foreign aerospace objects through km zone.

22. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
Reasons of tolerance
It is not safe to claim sovereignty over it.
The traverse of aerospace objects does not lead to interference in the zone, because human activities therein are still scarce.
Aerospace objects are merely for the purpose of transportation and does not incur significant perceptible disadvantage upon the subjacent State.

23. Aerospace Objects and Delimitation
Regulating body
ICAO
COPUOS
An intermediary group