Dubai (CU)_ Dubai has opened a new global Courts of Space especially for commercial space-related disputes. The court will deal with the out of the world disputes related to space. The Courts of Space project is part of a collaboration between the Dubai Future Foundation and the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts.
The project will see an international public and private sector expert working group functioning to discuss space-related legal problems linked to space-related conflicts and find alternative outcomes. A Space Dispute Guide will also be developed, including a set of guidelines to help such space-related disputes, and judges will be given training so that they become experts in such disputes.
Chief justice of the DIFC Courts, Zaki Azmi, said in a press release: “The Courts of Space is a global initiative that will operate in parallel, helping to build a new judicial support network to serve the stringent commercial demands of international space exploration in the 21st century. As space commerce becomes ever more global and countries ever more connected, diverse and nimble, economies will need to enable growth. Complex commercial agreements will also require an equally innovative judicial system to keep pace, offering assurance and certainty to support and protect businesses.”
The UAE is emerging as an active participant in the space exploration field with such moves and aims to hit Mars in February this year. The DIFC Courts was founded in 2004 and is an English-language common law judicial system which forms a key part of the UAE legal system. As the number of private companies interested in spaceflight continues to expand, and with the costly nature of the facilities and projects involved in space-related activities, it appears that Dubai has tried to capitalize on the absence of an existing forum to settle these international disputes.
