L'intéret d'un droit environnemental de l'espace: la "responsabilisation" des activités spatiales

Environmental space law, a discipline in its infancy, may benefit from two legal tools that are absent from other sectors of international law: 1. state responsibility for national activities in outer space, requiring states to au- thorize and supervise space activities carried out by nationals or from their territory (Article VI, Outer Space Treaty); 2. liability of the launching State for damage caused by space objects (Article VII, Outer Space Treaty, and Liability Convention). These obligations need to be interpreted in light of international environmental law, as including a duty to prevent and to remedy the excessive creation of space debris, today the first source of pollution in Earth orbit. It is in particular the principle of sustainable development that is called to play a key role in the conduct of space activities.