Discussion On Legal Question Of Environmental Damage Caused By Space Debris

In recent years, human beings explore the space and carry out space activities more and more frequently. The problem of environmental pollution caused by space debris becomes more and more prominent. Space debris will make available space in the outer space more and more crowded. In particular, the pollution of near-earth orbit space will increase the accident rate in the outer space. Space debris is also dangerous for surface environment. Its reflexive materials will pose a threat to the human life, property and environment.The severity of pollution caused by space debris has attracted much attention of the international society. This global problem makes the international society jointly committed to the research and development of space debris mitigation technology and legal regulation of space debris. In particular, the legal regulation framework for further establishment of the definition of space debris and liability recovery of environmental damage caused by space debris etc. should be established as soon as possible.This paper analyzes the current environmental pollution problem caused by space debris mainly from the legal perspective; conducts a concrete analysis on five major treaties and provisions in other normative documents that deal with space environment issue currently; finds the legal basis of this problem; discusses the undertaking of legal responsibility of problems caused by space debris and improves deficiencies of international laws and regulations in the process of dealing with this problem so as to handle space debris problem better.This paper discusses the legal responsibility problem of space debris in detail, improves international laws and regulations and makes an appeal for establishing a new space debris handling specification in the international society as soon as possible so as to solve this problem; analyzes the faultiness of Chinese space laws and regulations for space debris and makes suggestions for the improvement-connection of domestic law and international law so as to solve the international problem;systematically introduces how space debris problem is handled in China and makes related suggestions so as to solve the environmental damage problem caused by space debris in China.