Commercial Suborbital Flights - Air or Space Law?

Sažetak

The concept of commercial suborbital flights cannot be determined while we are in a lack of two fundamental things: definition of suborbital flight and legal regulation for this phenomena. While attempting to discern between air and space law regime which would govern commercial suborbital flights, due to the nonexistent delimitation between air space and outer space, we are facing several questions that need to be solved. These questions are considered through either spatialist or functionalist approaches, that are further used for discerning whether commercial suborbital flights (would) fall under the scope of air or space law.

In that context, in this paper we aim at taking a look at the broader picture, analyzing existing regulation and work of regulatory bodies in the EU and US.

To conclude, we are suggesting new sui generis approach towards commercial suborbital flights in international law, possibly through the ICAO backed up with the help of UNCOPUOS, and the creation of a separate convention which would address commercial suborbital flights as a special category.