Space and military law experts from Australia, the UK and the US have joined forces to take the lead on understanding how international laws will be applied in times of armed conflict in outer space.
Legal and policy experts from the University of Adelaide, UNSW Canberra, the University of Exeter, and the University of Nebraska will draft The Woomera Manual on the International Law of Military Space Operations.
The Woomera Manual will become the definitive document on military and security law as it applies to space. The project will be completed in 2020 and will draw on the knowledge of dozens of legal and space operations experts from around the world, according to the group.
The founding leaders of the Woomera Manual are Professor Melissa de Zwart and Professor Dale Stephens (Adelaide), Professor Rob McLaughlin (UNSW Canberra), Professor Michael Schmitt (Exeter), and Professor Jack Beard (Nebraska Law).
"Conflict in outer space is not a case of 'if' but 'when'. However, the legal regime that governs the use of force and actual armed conflict in outer space is currently very unclear, which is why the Woomera Manual is needed," Professor de Zwart said.
"The few international treaties that deal with outer space provide very little regulation of modern space activities, including both military and commercial uses of space. Therefore, we need to cast our gaze more widely in our approach to determining what laws are applicable in space."
Rob McLaughlin, Professor of Military and Security Law at UNSW Canberra, also highlighted the potential for wars to expand beyond the atmosphere.
"Space is a key enabler for communications, surveillance, early warning, navigation systems and is a critical security and conflict domain."
"Such extensive use of space by military forces has produced a growing awareness that space-based assets are becoming particularly vulnerable to adverse actions by potential competitors," Professor McLaughlin said.
The US Secretary of the Air Force, Heather Wilson, declared last year that the US must start to prepare for the possibility of armed conflict in outer space.
"We can no longer afford to ignore the legal implications of the military use of space," Michael Schmitt, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Exeter, said.
"The four universities who form the founding partnership of the Woomera Manual project are committed to developing an agreed understanding, and then subsequent articulation, of how international law more generally applies to regulate military space activities in a time of rising tension and even outright armed conflict."
Jack Beard, Associate Professor with the University of Nebraska College of Law, noted that the new document would be based on legal precedents. "The Woomera Manual will be drafted in the full tradition of other manuals that have been developed by legal and policy experts over the last 20 years, including the San Remo Manual on Naval Warfare, the Harvard Manual on Air and Missile Warfare, and the Tallinn Manuals (1.0 and 2.0) dealing with laws applicable to cyber operations and warfare."
"Such manuals have proven to have a significant impact in their respective fields, and we envisage that the Woomera Manual will have the same impact for the military uses of space," Professor Beard said.
The Woomera Manual is named after the Woomera township in South Australia, which has a long association with both Australian and multi-national military space operations. Woomera was the site from which Australia successfully launched its first satellite in 1967.
In Australian Indigenous culture, a "woomera" is a traditional spear-throwing device. The name originates from Dharug, a language of the Eora people.