ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the basic tenets of the UN Charter on the regime on the use force will be interwoven with the extant and relevant legal provisions of the Space Law regime. A main goal of US space policy during the pre-Outer Space Treaty era was to gain international recognition of the legality of reconnaissance satellites, while simultaneously discouraging military space activities that threatened those assets. In 1990, the first Gulf War heralded the beginning of a new era in the dynamics of waging war. Electromagnetic and radiation weapons with the capacity to impair electronic circuitry by creation and/or emission of Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) or radiation are the predominant form of indirect military force weaponry. Militarisation of outer space is a fact and its weaponisation an emerging reality. The final treaty, the Outer Space Treaty-embodied the understanding that the actual end-use of a piece of equipment used in space is more important than its military origin or potential military capabilities.
