The primary thrust of distinction is the mandate that a military force is legally authorized to direct its attacks only against opposing military objectives, not against non-combatants such as civilians and neutrals and their property. The starting point for the Article is the principle of distinction (also known as discrimination), a most fundamental tenet of the law of armed conflict. A burgeoning modern propensity for increased intermingling of civilian and military satellite assets may, in a surprising fashion, run afoul of fundamental, longstanding international legal principles that require a salient differentiation-and the United States is the leading (but not the only) offender in deliberately violating the obligation of sharp separation of different categories of space vehicles.
This Article addresses an analogous but very different genre of distancing: the requirement under the law of armed conflict (“LoAC”) for separating military from civilian objects and personnel, and it applies those standards to a novel milieu, outer space. Where common sense was insufficient, law augmented this effective barrier against intermingling and enforced the rigorous strictures of separation for mutual protection. and global population by the novel coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, as we all learned the importance of establishing adequate buffer zones around ourselves and sustaining a rigid keep-out perimeter against potential threats. The theory and practice of “social distancing” were suddenly thrust upon a startled U.S.
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