Proceedings of the Workshop - United Nations Office for Outer ...

EXPANDING GLOBAL REMOTE SENSING SERVICES 107States domestic law and policy.71 The rest of the UnitedStates position held that a sanctioned two-tier practicecould not be adopted, although the right of a nation toplace restrictions on its own data as a matter ofsovereign prerogative could be recognized. The positionalso held that enforcement of data restrictions would bethe responsibility of the nation imposing therestrictions; and, guidelines should be adopted for therelations among national weather services and betweenthe private sector and national weather services. Thefunction of the guidelines would be to facilitateagreeable arrangements involving commercialactivities.72A draft resolution, including four annexes, wasadopted. It included as a fundamentalprinciple...broadening and enhancing the free andunrestricted international exchange of meteorologicaland related data and data products. Free andunrestricted was defined as non-discriminatory andwithout charge. Without charge was defined in thecontext of the resolution as no more than the cost ofreproduction and delivery, without charge for the dataand products themselves. Three data exchange practiceswere also drafted. First, the minimum data and productsthat members shall provide include severe weatherwarnings and advisories and specific types of data fromspecific systems as well as synoptic observational data.Second, data that should be provided are thosenecessary to sustain global, regional and nationalWMO programs and data to assist other Members inproviding weather services in their own countries. Itwas understood, however, that members may placeconditions on the re-export of this data for commercialpurposes for reasons such as national laws or cost ofreproduction. Finally, all data and products should beprovided to the research and education communities fornon-commercial purposes. Research and educationcommunities include researchers, teachers, and studentsin academic and research institutions and in othergovernment and non-government research institutions.73Unlike the original proposal which required Membersto perform their utmost to ensure that re-exportrestrictions were respected by their [national weatherservices] and by all organizations given access to[restricted data] within their territories or abroadfollowing a legitimate re-export74 the draft resolutionurged Members to [m]ake their best efforts to ensurethat re-export conditions are made known to initial andsubsequent recipients.75A final set of policies and practices were adopted.Although the resolution and the final version aresubstantially the same, there is an important changebetween them. The adopted version omits the term "tierone" and replaces it with "essential data" to describedata sets that must be provided. Similarly, the term "tiertwo" is replaced with the term "additional data" thatshould be provided. These changes reflect acompromise between the United States position thatrejected the adoption of a formal tier system and theEuropean position that some kinds of data must beallowed to be restricted.Resolution 40,76 as the final version has come to beknown, explicitly adopts the policy of free andunrestricted international data exchange, rejects thetwo-tier system, recognizes the need to support WMO71 The Policy Act, supra note 9, at 15 U.S.C. §§ 5671 and5672, prohibits the commercialization of the national weathersatellites. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Officeof Management and Budget Circular A-130, Federal Register,Vol. 59, No. 141, 7/25/94. A complex piece of policy guidance,A-130 is generally accepted that it instructs executive agenciesto avoid inappropriate constraint of access by the public togovernment information. This includes setting cost recoverypolicies at a threshold low enough to facilitate access. Much ofthe policy's substance was codified in the 1995 Paper ReductionAct raising the long-term status of the policy to a law, 35U.S.C. §§ 3501 - 3520.72 Bulletin, supra note 70, at 1478 - 79.73 Draft Res. 11.4/1 (Cg-XII) - WMO Policy and Practice forthe Exchange of Meteorological and Related Data and ProductsIncluding Guidelines on Relationships in CommercialMeteorological Activities [hereinafter, Draft Resolution].74 Report to Plenary on Item 17, EC-XLVI/PINK 65(14. VI. 1994), (WMO Executive Council, 46th Session), FutureArrangements fo r the Exchange o f Meteorological Data andProducts, (1994).75 Draft Resolution, supra note 73.76 Resolution 40, supra note 19.