Legal liability from commercial services in Air and Space Law

In recent years, travels to space by private companies have started to be organized. This has led to the creation of concepts like space tourist, space participant or space traveler with space tourism. The rewards of responsibility for damage caused by a spacecraft to a space participant is a subject of discussion in the literature. The international liability of the Launching State or the International Intergovernmental Organization will result in the case of a damage given to a space participant in a space object of another launching state either on the surface of the earth, in air or in space. However, in the event of any damage to space passenger in the spacecraft during the launch of the spacecraft, in the space, or in the descent phase to the Earth, the space passenger shall not be subject to the 7th Article of the Liability Agreement for the responsibility of its own "Launching State". The Liability Convention does not apply to nationals of the launching State and to foreign nationals participating in space operations from the moment of launching to the descent of space object. In this case, the space passengers will only be able to compensate their damages by resorting to local remedies. In Turkey, Ministry of Transport, Maritime Communications prepared "Draft Law of Turkey Space Agency Establishment and Regulation of Space Activities (Turkey Space Law Draft)" which was submitted to parliament by Board of Ministers on 13.02.2017. This draft law has not been enacted. Instead, on 13 December 2018, Turkey Space Agency was established with "Turkey Space Agency on Presidential Decree" no. 23 published in the Official Gazette numbered 30624. In neither the decree nor the draft law, there is no provision that in cases where there are no provisions, the Turkish Civil Aviation Law (TSHK) should be applied, there will not be any more appropriate approach than applying TSHK's liability provisions to national Space Law. In addition, the space vehicles which could takeoff and cruise in the air, as much as they are in the atmosphere (airspace) they are counted as air vehicles by the provisions of THSK. For this reason, in order to clarify on the regulation of the rules that should be applied in domestic law, the provisions related to commercial service activities of Air Law are mentioned paying attention to provision in TSHK.