SUI GENERIS INTERPRETATION OF KEY ELEMENTS OF SPACE DEMILITARIZATION FOR ENSURING PEACEFUL USES.

The alleged fifth domain of warfare has surfaced difficult definitional questions, disjoint in form, but not in effect. The convergence with the development of cyberwarfare tactics, such as hacking, jamming, or spoofing, has emerged as an Achilles’ heel for efforts to ensure the demilitarization of outer space. Standing on Articles III and IV of the Outer Space Treaty, the demilitarization campaign falls on antediluvian thresholds of ‘use of force’ and ‘armed attack’. Neither terms, however, have been metamorphosed for application to outer space. Added to this, the prohibition on only nuclear weapons and ‘weapons of mass destruction’ under Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty opens the Pandora’s Box in defining ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in the context of outer space. The application of our earthly understanding of ‘use of force’, ‘armed attack’ and ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to outer space would result in disasters, the vulnerability of which can even be exposed by a centimetre-sized high velocity projectile. This paper proposes the infusion of an effects-based approach to evolutionarily interpret these three terms in a manner that acknowledges contemporary threats in outer space. The definitional infrastructure so formulated thus proposes to detach earthly modules from extraterritorial realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]