1.1 Research Question
This paper seeks to address the central question: “What obligations does international law impose on launching/responsible states with respect to the environmental regulation of space object reentries in areas beyond national jurisdiction and does UNCLOS, in particular the BBNJ, close the normative gap between international space law and international environmental law?”
Four sub-questions structure the analysis in Parts 2 and 3. The first concerns the empirical and legal baseline: what environmental harm, if any, is caused by the reentry and splashdown of space objects in the high seas, and to what extent is that harm legally recognised under existing international frameworks? The legal analysis that follows examines the scope of the EIA obligation and the urgency of closing the normative gap, both of which depend on legally cognisable potential for environmental harm.
The second question addresses the existing obligation landscape: what duties do launching States bear under the OST, customary international law, and UNCLOS with respect to environmental harm caused by space object reentries in ABNJ? The third asks to what extent the BBNJ’s EIA obligation applies to splashdown operations, and how compliance with that obligation differs from previous practice. The fourth is the thesis’s ultimate evaluative question: is current splashdown practice consistent with binding international environmental law? Each of these questions is answered in sequence across Parts 1 through 3, with the fourth drawing conclusions from the analysis.