Professor Frans von der Dunk has been nominated a member of an Advisory Group of legal experts on optional rules for arbitration of disputes relating to Outer Space, which is going to advise the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, the Netherlands, on the establishment of a specialised set of rules for arbitration of disputes involving not only states, but also intergovernmental organisations and private companies involved in space activities. The group will start work on this in the upcoming months, and will according to plan wind up in the fall of 2010. The findings of the Advisory Group will eventually be submitted for endorsement to the Administrative Council in which the 110 member states of the PCA are represented, which will ultimately allow those rules to officially become part of the body of optional arbitration rules of the PCA.

There will be a live link via Skype to the Space and Telecommunications Law conference taking place in Washington D.C. this week. This broadcast will occur at 2:30 today in the Courtroom.  Featured will be the Cyber Security Panel including these participants:

1. Maeve Dion, Program Manager for Cyber & Education, Center for Infrastructure Protection, George Mason U.
School of Law
2. Daniel J. Weitzner, Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy Analysis and Development, National
Telecommunications and Information Administration
3. Derek Jinks, Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law, U.S. Naval War College, Center for
Naval Warfare Studies
4. Lauri Allman, former Undersecretary of Defense for Estonia (head legal advisor
to the government during their 2007 incident, helped set up the NATO-accredited
Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn)
5. Vicki Belleau, Major, US Air Force, 24th Air Force, UNL Space and Telecom LL.M. Graduate