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

The claimant State and the launching State are given two months from the establishmentrequest to appoint the members of the Claims Commission and four months to agree to theappointment of the Chairman. 107 If a party fails to appoint “its” member of the ClaimsCommission within that time, then the other party may request the Chairman to constitute asingle-member Claims Commission. 108 If the parties fail to agree on a choice of Chairman, eitherparty may request the Secretary-General of the United Nations to appoint the Chairman. 109The Claims Commission is charged with one task only: to decide the merits of the claimfor compensation and determine the amount of compensation payable, if any, in accordance withArticle XII of the Liability Convention. 110 The Claims Commission is to determine its ownprocedure except that the award is to be decided by a majority vote. 111One of the strongest criticisms made against the procedure for the Claims Commission ascontained in the Liability Convention is that, unless the parties agree otherwise, the award madeby the Claims Commission is of no more than a recommendatory nature, which the parties are toconsider in good faith. 112 As suggested by some commentators, this means that nothing more thana conciliation procedure is assured under the Liability Convention and only if the parties agree tobe bound by the Claims Commission would it then resemble an arbitral tribunal. 113II.Domestic Implementation1. Provisions Dealing with Liability1.1. OverviewAs the Liability Convention imposes international liability for damage caused by spaceobjects on the launching States, several governments with an active private space sector haverecognised the need to pass on this liability to private operators through domestic legislation.This is in combination with the obligation to authorise and continually supervise the spaceactivities of non-governmental entities under Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty.Most of the existing domestic legislation in force concerning private space activitiesimposes some regime of indemnification in order to transfer the liability risk from thegovernment to the private operators. It should be noted that the existence of domestic legislationdealing with liability does not affect the rights and obligations of the State at an internationallevel. The State remains liable internationally pursuant to the Liability Convention and thelegislation does no more than to provide a legal basis by which the State can then seek to recoverany compensation paid from the private operator through domestic legal channels.1.2. Australia and Russia107 Ibid., Article XV.108 Ibid., Article XVI (1).109 Ibid., Article XV.110 Ibid., Articles XVIII and XIX (1).111 Ibid., Article XVI. Indeed, it would be unworkable for the Liability Convention to suggest that aconsensus is to be reached, considering that one of the members of the Claims Commission is to beappointed by each of the parties.112 Liability Convention, Article XIX.113 See, for example, Karl-Heinz Böckstiegel, Settlement of Disputes Regarding Space Activities (1993) 21J. SPACE L. 1 at 3.