Christopher D. Johnson
Chris Johnson is the Director, Legal Affairs and Space Law for Secure World Foundation and has nine years of professional experience in international space law and policy.
He has authored and co-authored publications on international space law, national space legislation, international cooperation in space, human-robotic cooperative space exploration, and on the societal benefits of space technology for Africa.
Prior to joining SWF, Mr. Johnson worked as an attorney in New York City and entered the space field in 2010 as an intern at the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA) in Vienna, Austria during the 53rd Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. He has also served as an intern in the Office of International and Interagency Relations (OIIR) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, and as a legal stagiaire in the International Law and EU Legal Affairs division at the European Space Agency’s Legal Department at ESA Headquarters in Paris, France. As a member of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), Mr. Johnson co-founded the Space Law and Policy Project Group in 2012.
Mr. Johnson serves as a Professor of Law (Adjunct) at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington D.C., where he co-teaches the spring Space Law Seminar. He is also Adjunct Faculty at the International Space University (ISU) in Strasbourg, France, the Legal Advisor for the Moon Village Association (MVA); and a Core Expert and Rule Drafter in the Manual on International Law Applicable to Military Activities in Outer Space (MILAMOS) project.
Read Mr. Johnson's publications.
Education
Mr. Johnson holds a Bachelor's of Art (B.A) degree in English from Michigan State University; a Juris Doctor from New York Law School; and an Advanced Masters in Law (LLM) in Air and Space Law from Leiden University’s International Institute of Air and Space Law. He also has professional certificates from New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice, and European Centre for Space Law (ECSL) 2010 Summer Program in Space Law and Policy at the Universidad de Jaén, Spain. He also attended the International Space University (ISU) 2011 Space Studies Program in Graz, Austria with scholarships from the European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency, and the 2012 ISU Masters in Science program in Strasbourg, France with a scholarship from the European Space Agency. Since 2013, he has returned to ISU to serve as a Teaching Associate and Guest Lecturer, and as Departmental Chair in the Space Policy, Economics, and Law (PEL) department at the ISU SSP in Haifa, Israel (2016) and Delft, Netherlands (2018).
Mr. Johnson was admitted to practice law in New York State in 2005, in England and Wales in 2008, and in the District of Columbia in 2016.
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