The sources of legal protection of near Earth outer space from littering in the context of providing long-term sustainability

Gurova A. The sources of legal protection of near Earth outer space from littering in the context of providing long-term sustainability

The article deals with urgent problems of sources of law regarding the near-Earth space. That’s why for solving this task author analyses the basical treaties in the regulation of space activity such as Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States on the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies of 01.27.1967, the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space of 22.04. 1968, the Convention on international liability for damage caused by space objects of 03.29.1972, the Convention on registration of objects Launched into Outer space on 1.14.1975 and other international rules and regulations adopted by different authoritative international organizations, such as UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes and his subcommittees International Telecommunication Union, International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Also author researches approaches of foreign and native scholars in space law.
On this basis author extracts immanent characteristics of normative sources of space regulation and pursues their classification. The author attempts to select the role and place of technical and political influence on the legislative process in the space sphere. In this context the author analyses content of international space agreements and other connected with them treaties, technical standards of ISO concerning prevention of littering and protecting the adjacent space in detail and gives the own explanations concerning usefulness and effectiveness of this norms for overcome challenges caused by technological activities of people in near space. Also author gives a specific example of the non-responsible usage of space by country which promotes combating debris in first place, which clearly illustrates the political nature of compliance with these rules.    
Special attention is given to current process of legal provisions formulation within the Working group of long-term sustainability of space activities and to results of its activity that is synthesis of based on best practices for voluntary performance guidelines for all subjects of space activities to ensure long-term sustainability of the use of outer space. In general, given the characteristics of these standards, highlighted both positive and negative aspects of their proposed ways to improve the regulating ability.
As the result author concludes that sources of legal protection of near-Earth space from littering in the context of long-term sustainability is complex conglomerate of various nature in its normative and uniform voluntary nature of their application, are in a continuous process of formation and improvement. In this manner the main mean able to be provided for the effective protection from clogging space besides perfect legal technique is ecological culture, strong political will and responsible attitude to its activities to the current and future generations.
Keywords: korrealism, implicitly, space debris, soft law.