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

108 EXPANDING GLOBAL REMOTE SENSING SERVICESactivities, identifies specific minimum data sets thatmust be provided, limits restrictions to re-export ratherthan uses, articulates guidelines for interaction betweenthe meteorological services and commercial practices;and contains a broad definition of research andeducation communities.77 Nonetheless, as formulated,the overall effect of Resolution 40 has hampered thefree flow of meteorological data for weather servicesworldwide for the largest operational application ofremote sensing.78 It is also apparently imperfect in itsapplication due to the global nature of weather.Formally stating a tenet that had previously been anunquestioned, accepted and widely-held practice whiledecreasing the scope of the practice's application,indicates that the stated principle has, in fact, beenweakened. To be sure, it is to be counted as a successfor the principle of openness that the formal statementwas made and adopted. But if it is to evolve intosomething more than "shoring up" a weakenedprinciple, then practical access to all data categorieswill have to be demonstrated. And although the two-tiersystem was rejected officially, the effect of identifyinga minimum set of basic data and products that must beprovided is the identification of another set that need notbe provided. This is inclusio unius est exclusio alterius- the inclusion of one is the exclusion of another. Theresult is a de facto tier system.The adopted practice which allows placingrestrictive conditions on the re-export of some data andenforcement guidelines that condone data denial are,themselves, logically inconsistent with the concept ofthe free and unrestricted data exchange.79 Additionally,and most importantly for remote sensing, data andproducts from operational meteorological satellites have77 Bulletin, supra note 70, at 1478-99.78 Letter from Commercial Weather Services Association to theCommission of the European Communities, Directorate GeneralIV - Competition. (September 28, 1995) Signed by 45companies from the United States, Canada, England, andArgentina. This dates to the time Resolution 40 was passed.Conducting a formal study now to document the development ofthis early trend would be timely and useful.79 Id.been placed within the essential category. However,despite this designation, they will only be provided asagreed by satellite operators and "data and productsnecessary for operations regarding severe weatherwarnings and tropical cyclone warnings" "should" beincluded, but are not required.80 While this provisionattempts to balance the national desire to retainsovereign control over data exchange policies that affectexpensive national assets with the inherent importanceof meteorological satellite data, it holds the long-termprospect of erratic data access.Resolution 40 also demonstrates that before thelaws of nature, human-made law is imperfect at best. Acompelling case of the logic of geography over the logicof politics is the inclusion in the essential data categoryof "as many data as possible that will assist in definingthe state of the atmosphere at least on a scale of theorder of 200 km in the horizontal and six to 12 hours intime.81 Meteorological data at these spatial andtemporal scales are an absolute necessity for computermodel initialization and verification. Were a nation toselectively withhold data at these scales, it would createa data void, rendering other nations computer modelsuseless. Satellite derived atmospheric parameters maybe able to compensate for these critical data in thefuture, but until then all nations are naturally dependanton one another to provide in situ synoptic scaleobservations. Another manifestation of the logic ofgeography may be the United States decision tocontinue unrestricted access to its own data. Since thepolicy's scope is continental - an important unit inmeteorological metrics - as well as national, it may bethat geography more than political power willultimately determine the long-term effect of thesechanges on the global weather community.Finally, during the same time period that Resolution40 was being forged, the question of restricted datamoved into the realm of operations in 1994 whenEUMETSAT began to encrypt the data from its80 WMO Resolution 40, Annex 1 (Cg-Xii), Data And ProductsTo Be Exchanged Without Charge And With No Conditions OnUse, number 8.81 Id.