The Manual of International Law Applicable to Military Uses of Outer Space

Abstract

The Manual of International Law Applicable to Military Uses of Outer Space (MILAMOS process to produce the ‘McGill Manual’) is currently being developed jointly by The University of Adelaide, McGill University and the University of Exeter. The core participants of this project include practitioners, academics, technical experts, military officers and government lawyers. The production of such a Manual is critical and timely given the international community is increasingly recognizing that warfare conducted in, to and from outer space is both foreseeable and potentially highly damaging to national security interests as well as civilian activities on earth and space. Despite this, there has been little interest in formulating any kind of new legal instrument that grapples with this militarization phenomenon. Moreover, there has also been insufficient research and a lack of clarity on the interactions between international space law and the law relating to the Use of Force and International Humanitarian Law. This paper considers the role of International Operational Law Manuals in providing a non-binding architecture for normative compliance and highlights key legal issues that are being navigated in the MILAMOS process.