## 3 Some Thoughts on Legal Issues Related to Space Debris  
Satellites will get hit by pieces of space junk. As mentioned previously, this is not a matter of IF, but rather of WHEN and HOW BAD the damage will be. Some of these impacts will result in catastrophic failure or the destruction of that satellite. Since the building and launching of a satellite (or satellite constellation) can run into the USD 100 millions, it is only natural to attempt to recoup that loss, and either try again or try something else. Legal issues related to ownership of the \"satellite-killer\" junk do come up, as well as to where that junk came from, how it came to be junk, and who was responsible for that. Answers to simple questions like why? and how? quickly become a tangled mess of cause and effect that is often impossible to unravel. For better or worse, there appears to be a lot of leeway in what countries can or cannot do in outer space, despite the existence of quite a few treaties that have attempted to define the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Some of the key international treaties covering issues to space and its use are listed as follows:  
1. Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (aka The Outer Space Treaty, or more simply, as \"the OST\"), 1967. 2. Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts, and the Return of Objects Launched Into Outer Space (aka The Rescue Agreement), 1968. 3. Convention on International Liability for Damages Caused by Space Objects (aka The Liability Convention), 1972. 4. Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (aka The Registration Convention), 1974. There are also various organizations that deal with space debris (some based in specific countries of origin, some international in scope), and they have their own guidelines and/or requirements. These organizations are, to name a few, as follows:  
1. Inter-Agency Space Debris Mitigation Coordination Committee (IADC)
2. Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space (COPUOS)
3. United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)
4. International Law Commission (ILC)
5. International Academy of Astronautics (IAA)  
These organizations have, on their own, also developed numerous policy statements regarding the appropriate and shared use of space. With regard to space debris, these policies include the following:  
1. Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines, IADC, 2007 [16]. 2. Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, COPUOS, 2010 [17]. 3. Space Debris Mitigation Requirements Standard, ISO, 2023 [18]. 4. Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities, COPUOS, 2021 [19]. The reader is referred to the paper entitled, \"Space Law and Hazardous Space Debris\", authored by Dr. [PERSON] from the International Institute of Space Law [20]. This paper is a very comprehensive treatment of current issues related to space debris from a legal perspective. The following are some thoughts, comments, and questions that arise from a review of the information in that paper. Issues related to those discussed herein are presented in some detail in Ref. [21]. Additionally, discussions regarding the legal issues related to space debris, including ownership, liability, and clean-up, now appear more frequently in the proceedings of a number of conferences, including the quadrennial European Space Debris Conference (sponsored and organized by ESA) and the quadrennialInternational Orbital Debris Conference (sponsored and organized by NASA, Washington, DC, USA). To begin, once a space object is considered to be \"hazardous\", common sense might dictate that the \"launching state\" for that space object should be responsible for reducing or removing that hazard. However, the question then arises regarding how is it decided that an object is \"hazardous\" and by whom?