Civilian drones: Legal Histories of Uncrewed Future Flights

Authors argue that drones have created the conditions for airspace to be considered as a form of common-pool resource, with correspondingly different governance challenges and possibilities. Making novel use of Ostrom’s design principles as a heuristic for reflecting on the UK experience , the chapter identifies critical themes for better understanding the current tentative state of drone governance. The chapter then addresses wider themes, including the importance of understanding the relational characteristics of drone systems, the emergence of more collective governance approaches and the challenge for hierarchical actors in overcoming potential epistemic ‘lock-in’ when reconciling their traditional approach to this new landscape. The chapter concludes with some important questions for future work.

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About the speaker

Prior to taking up Visiting Research Fellowships at the University of Basel, Centre for Life Sciences Law and the University of Cambridge, Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Dr Mariela de Amstalden was an Associate Professor in Law and Technology at the University of Exeter Law School (UK). Formerly, she held tenure at the University of Birmingham Law School as Assistant Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law, joining from the University of Edinburgh Law School, Scottish Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (SCRIPT), where she was a visiting research fellow focused on 'artificiality and the law'. Her body of scholarship primarily focuses on law and technology, food and public health, with a particular focus on bioeconomies in international law, engineering biology, robotics and intellectual property rights.

She also held appointments as Senior Lecturer (non tenure-track) in Public International Law and Swiss Constitutional Law at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) in Switzerland, as SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia, Peter A. Allard Law School in Canada, and as ARC Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Faculty of Law, in Australia. She also previously held visiting positions at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge and at the Institute for International Economic Law, Georgetown University.

Alongside private practice experience with Schellenberg Wittmer and CMS Erlach Poncet in their dispute resolution departments, she consulted for the Swiss government (Department of Public Health), and the United Nations (UNITAR, Knowledge Systems Department) on issues related to trade in foodstuffs and sustainable development law, respectively. She also clerked for Swiss regional courts and tribunals in commercial and administrative matters during my clinical legal training. Also known as: Mariela (Eletti) de Amstalden, Dr.iur (Lucerne), LL.M (VU Amsterdam), MLaw (Lucerne), BLaw (Madrid), FHEA (UK), Solicitor and Barrister (non-practising, Spain/EU).