Executive director : PhJ COULOMB

Research focuses on a world project, the Galileo Project, which consists in the deployment of a constellation of satellites around the planet to create a world system of navigation by satellites, in order to reduce -for economic and strategic reason? the dependence of the European Union toward the American GPS (Global Positioning System) and the Russian Glonass (Global Navigation Satellite System).

The GPS system is currently dominating the market. It is therefore necessary to guarantee the European strategic needs in terms of safety and foreign policy, without risk or excessive cost. The system will have to provide world coverage to allow for applications for the general public that will be secured by a horizontal precision, inferior to ten meters and for a time of ten nanoseconds. Applications are almost unlimited: here are a few examples: managing the road transports traffic, train, naval, submarine and air traffic; protection of the environment; managing agriculture; telecommunications, telemedicine, distance learning-education; managing the control of fishing; customs control; optimization of mobile phones; tracking of stolen vehicles; banking operations; humanitarian operations; follow-up of scientific marking, etc…

The total cost of Galileo for the 1999-2008 time period is estimated at about 4 billions Euros and like the GPS the signal should be provided for free. A globalization of the system with GPS and GLONASS should be realized with the GNSS system (Global Navigation System by Satellite) that would include partnership at the world level. Contacts have already been made with Canada, China, Switzerland, Israel, Australia, South Africa, Korea and India…

However, this high technology system, including a spatial part and ground segments, is particularly vulnerable. So, any diverted use of the signals or any access by a potential enemy during a war should be made impossible. We will have to
· Create services with a controlled access reserved to subscribers.
· Develop a Public-Private Partnership (PPP).
· Create a directing/supervising committee ad hoc and a managing organization that will satisfy imperatives of the different states and of the private sector.
· Define the frequencies and prevent any malfunctioning.

The development program has been planned as the following:
1. Phase of development and validation: 2001-2005.
2. Phase of deployment: 2006-2007.
3. Phase of exploitation: 2008.

Everyone thus understands the importance of the work of the International Advisory Commission GALILEO (IACG), which, considering the recent catastrophic events, wishes to do per request of its partners, some research on the application of the Principle of Precaution of the Galileo Project. Its implication is to be done with a permanent consultation with political instances, scientists and jurists. Some members are already dispatched in Europe, and works go on with the participation of contributors from the civil society.

The freedom of action of the IACG, at the levels of both publishing results and communicating with the media, guarantees its independence vis-à-vis lobbying groups.
Now, it is obvious that the notion of prevention and precaution are closely related. It is therefore necessary to define and differentiate the semantic value of these two key words. Prevention is to take measures to avoid for scientifically predictable risks to happen. Precaution is to study all the possibilities that would allow avoiding a priori scientifically unpredictable risks, considering the current state of knowledge. This consciousness results from the fact that human, by living under the protection of social law, has lost the 'innate' sense of precaution and has blindly trusted scientific knowledge.
Unfortunately, a series of catastrophes, non-directly imputable to scientists, has introduced a latent doubt in our minds.
Society wants to understand and requests responsibilities to be established with transparency and certainty.
However, the more a state or a society becomes strong and confident in its superiority, the more it tends to forget the foundation of the Principle of Precaution.
The recent terrorist acts are an obvious example of this. All individual or society is simultaneously a predator and a prey to another individual or society. Unfortunately, this universal law can only endure.
The IACG thus wishes to accelerate the process of consciousness, in order to reduce, if not annihilate, potential catastrophes, which consequences could be worldwide.

Throughout its work and action, it must contribute and help to:
· Guarantee the independence of the European project vis-à-vis the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS, while making them inter-operating.
-Define levels of responsibility, knowing that the state members will have to accept a unique management.
-Prevent the rise of new powers related to those technologies that might destroy the state of right.
-Study the impact of the project on collective and individual liberties.
-Propose a 'spatial' right at the universal level.
-Definition of a universal political space.
-Writing of a Chart that would notify all the obligations related to the principle of precaution:
-Protection of the different atmospheric layers and more particularly: troposphere, stratosphere and mesosphere (integrity, pollution, clutter, quality of the interfaces, physical & chemical qualities, quality of the inter-layers exchanges…).
-Industrial spatial policy (managing the risks, competition, monopolies, overbid of the cost and its impact on populations…).
-Coordination of the different programs.
-Security.
-Confidentiality.
-Inter-states collaboration regarding legal and scientific research.
-Progressive study of spatial Law according to the advancement of technology resulting from the realization of the programs.
-Information and the media.
-Education through degree courses.
-Study of the different prospects in terms of spatial conquest: planetary, inter-stellar, galactic and extragalactic circum.
-New technologies, Law and Ethics.

The results of this work constitute a basis for a legal organizational construction, which goal is to help the decision-making process for any kind of authority, at a national or international level.