Both the Scientific and Technical Sub-committee and the Legal Sub-committee of COPUOS gave attention in their 1978 meetings to the claims of the equatorial States relating to sovereignty over geostationary orbital positions. In each of the subcommittees there were assertions of diametrically opposing points of view. Since further debate on this subject will be based on the differing perspectives, they will be summarized. The basis for the summarization is the report of the Legal Sub-committee on the Work of its Seventeenth Session (13 March-7 April 1978). The equatorial States urge that they have sovereignty over their natural resources, and that such resources include the geographical area used by geostationary space objects while in orbit. In support of this proposition it is urged that the area is sui generis and most notably that it falls within their territory since there has not as yet been firmly established a legal boundary between sovereign airspace and the res communis of the space environment. Since the equatorial States are either clearly or essentially LDCs, they have sought to obtain the support of LDCs generally by urging that the limited natural resource of the geostationary orbit should be used in priority for the benefit of the LDCs. Presumably the use would be effected on an equitable basis with advantages going first to the equatorial States, then to the other LDCs, and lastly to the developed countries because of the general advantages already possessed by the latter. U.N. Doc. A/AC.105/218, pp. 9-10, April 13, 1978. Compare the Report of the Scientific and Technical Sub-committee on the Work of its Fifteenth Session, U.N. Doc. 105/216, pp. 26-27, March 6, 1978.
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