Dissertation
Civil Liability for Damage caused by Global Navigation Satellite System
On 17 December 2018, Dejian Kong defended his thesis 'Civil Liability for Damage caused by Global Navigation Satellite System'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. P.M.J. Mendes de Leon.
- Author
- Dejian Kong
- Date
- 17 December 2018
- Links
- Leiden Repository
Should GNSS cause damage to its users or any third parties, who shall be responsible or liable, and how? Is it fair enough to force a GNSS provider to bear the burden of compensation given GNSS open signals are provided free of charge to an undetermined scope? Could a GNSS provider release its civil liability by the doctrine of Sovereign Immunity if that provider is a public authority? This research is designed to explore whether current international laws are adequate to deal with those questions. If so, how those international laws apply? If not, where is the legal gap, and how should we move forward?
This research is composed of four parts. Part I transfers the focus gradually from GNSS technical matters to legal issues, and then to civil liability in particular. Part II concerns a conceptual analysis of GNSS civil liability, serving as a basis for any further study. Part III checks the applicability and the adequacy of current international air and space laws to the case where GNSS cause damage. Part IV tries to find a roadmap to move forward for the issue of GNSS civil liability in a feasible way.