THE UN PRINCIPLES ON REMOTE SENSING AND THE GATS: CONFLICTS OR PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE?

摘要

Commercial remote sensing with satellite imagery has evolved to be a freely traded service, individually owned and universally sold via Internet as e.g. Google Earth. Since providing such imagery via Internet can be seen as a service in the sense of Art. I:3 (b) of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) the trade with such internet services is governed by the general obligations and the specific commitments of the GATS. In this context the question arises of how to reconcile the WTO ideas of liberalization of international trade with the UN Principles Relating to Remote Sensing of 1986. Concretely, the problem of the rights of the sensed state (Principle IV) and the GATS obligation to grant market access with possible exceptions jumps out at the legal observer. The paper suggests that as the law stands at the moment the corpus iuris spatialis shall not impede the free international services trade but space law interests can be taken into account via GATS provisions.