On Monday, 9 September 2024, two highly significant international academic events in the field of International and Space Law, initiated and co-organised by the Law School of the University of Athens, were successfully completed.
From 26.8.2024 to 6.9.2024, the Athens Law School and the Athens PIL, together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Centre for Space Law (ECSL), organised the annual Summer Courses in this field of law.
Some sixty students and young professionals from all over Europe were welcomed to the premises of the Law School, where a number of professors and high-level experts gave them the opportunity to become more familiar with space law, its problems and perspectives.
On Monday, 9th of September, a similarly co-organised International Young Scholars Conference on Space Law, unique in the international academic annals, was held, in the framework of which about thirty students from all over the world presented extremely interesting ideas and thoughts and answered numerous questions from the audience. The theme of the conference was the development of legal reflection on the dilemma of “space exploration vs. space exploitation”. An indication of the success of the workshop is the fact that papers were presented by young scholars from fourteen countries (Norway, Netherlands, Finland, Vietnam, South Africa, India, UK, Germany, France, Hungary, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Greece).
The Summer Course was opened by the former Dean of the Law School, Professor Lino-Alexandros Sicilianos, and the Director of the Athens PIL, Professor Photini Pazartzi, while the current Dean of the Law School, Professor Konstantinos Christodoulou, introduced the Conference.
The Law School’s Department of International Studies was instrumental in making this happen. The Vice-Dean of the Law School, Associate Professor Georgios Kyriakopoulos, not only coordinated the overall events, but also made a significant contribution to the teaching of the summer courses, while at the same time taking the lead in the academic evaluation and final selection of the proposals submitted for the Conference. In addition, an organising committee of more than fifteen students (postgraduate and undergraduate), under the supervision of Prof. Georgios Kyriakopoulos, worked tirelessly and ultimately with complete success for these academic events.
Finally, special thanks are due to the sponsors of these two events. Without their decisive support, the success would not have been possible:
- The Hellas Sat Company
- The Property Development and Management Company of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
- The “AA LAWYERS – Anastasopoulos Afrati & Partners Law Firm”, and
- The “Nomiki Vibliothiki” Law Publishing House.
