The Republic of Korea, commonly known as South Korea, is recognized as one of the seven nations worldwide capable of launching a satellite weighing over one ton into orbit using a domestically developed launch vehicle from its own territory. Moreover, South Korea has pledged its commitment to the Artemis Accords and placed its lunar orbiter carrying the US ShadowCam around the Moon to conduct research that will be leveraged for the Artemis Program.
Given South Korea’s ambitious goals in the space sector, this book aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the current state of Korean space legislation and offer recommendations for improvement. The research primarily focuses on South Korea’s four domestic space laws and their corresponding regulations, which are analyzed from an international space law perspective and compared with the laws of selected countries.
The analysis reveals that the Korean space legislation encompasses almost every aspect of outer space exploration and utilization under international space law. However, the legal framework is a collection of processes centered on South Korea’s early viable space activities, which makes it unsuitable for regulating emerging space activities in the present climate of the space industry. Consequently, South Korea lacks an overarching, all-inclusive legislation that would entirely regulate current and future national space activities.
This book is the first of its kind in the Korean academic community, and it illuminates the extent of South Korea’s compliance with its international obligations and how its domestic regulations apply in the context of real-world application to national space activities. Finally, this book proposes possible revisions to the current Korean space legislation and provides practical recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders to create a better legal framework for South Korea.