Companies can use imaging data for business purposes ranging from site selection to natural resource management. Advocates can document and track human rights violations occurring around the world. Scientists can better understand and fight climate change by surveying bodies of water and natural areas for drought and deforestation at a global scale. Remotely sensed data can be strikingly accurate and provide numerous scientific, humanitarian, and commercial benefits. And there is no international legal framework governing remote sensing of a State’s territory from satellites in the Earth’s orbit.Įvery minute of every day, hundreds of satellites scan, image, and gather data about what is happening on the Earth’s surface. But no State can claim sovereignty over outer space. It is a settled principle of international law that a State has absolute sovereignty over the airspace above its territory, up to the boundary with outer space (which, however, is not perfectly settled). With all eyes recently on spy balloons, we lose sight of a basic question: why send a balloon when you can send a satellite? By Catherine Amirfar, Ina Popova, Christel Tham and Nicole Marton
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