Analysis of the applicable law to a private spaceflight contract under the latest chinese conflict rules legislation

To date, China does not have a private commercial space transportation industry. However, it does have a potential consumer market Assume that a Chinese space tourist suffers personal or property damage as a result of a private spaceflight and he/she or in the case of death, his/her estate will sue the space operator in mainland China., then the most recent conflict rules of China that entered into force on April 1, 2011 will apply. The present paper applies the Chinese conflict rules to a private spaceflight contract (PSC). It addresses the importance of the domestic conflict rules when a Chinese citizen becomes a space tourist. On one hand the paper discusses how a Chinese court should apply the existing domestic conflict rules in this "frontier". The paper also analyzes the difficulties which will arise in the law application process and provides the corresponding solutions. The author aims at building a uniform conflict rules regime to regulate the PSC. Specifically, this paper contains an analysis of the applicable law to the contracting capacity for a space operator, the applicable law to the legal effectiveness of a PSC and in particular with the effect of a waiver clause in a PSC. Meanwhile, the paper argues some traditional issues in private international law, such as characterization, the directly applicable law and public policy. Besides, the paper notes the significance to strike an appropriate balance between the "safety" and "promotion" value, which respectively embodies the interests of space tourists and space operator, while establishing an international or regional conflict rules regime. The final goal of this paper is to serve as the starting point of the discussion on the national conflict rules with regard to private spaceflight.