Registration of the 12 December 2012 satellite launch by North Korea: Should UNOOSA have accepted it?

The transmittal letter from North Korea to the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs in January 2013 of the registration of the placement in orbit of the North Korea satellite, Bright Star 3-2, in December 2012 raised a number of interesting legal issues. Specifically, the United Nations Security Council had adopted Resolution 2087 on the 22nd of January 2013 that condemned that North Korean launch due to the use of ballistic missile technology and that the launch was in violation of two prior UN Resolutions. The status of the satellite itself was not addressed in Resolution 2087, and the question of whether the satellite should be registered by the UNOOSA was unclear. This note concludes that the UNOOSA was legally bound to register the satellite under the terms of the Outer Space Treaty and the Registration Convention.