ISBN: 978-1-03-205027-0
Samar Abbas Nawaz
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Drones are permeating our society at a significantly higher pace through private, commercial and law enforcement applications. Owing to easy accessibility and innovative sensors, their utility is becoming hard to ignore. This permeation, however, also raises significant concerns for citizens which include privacy, safety, and environmental issues. This book explores such challenges against ongoing developments and analyzes prevailing regulatory frameworks and regional policies. It is well-structured with attention to key issues surrounding the drone revolution. A special section devoted to insurance adds greater value to the book in view of the varying approaches adopted by different states. The authors do an impeccable job in delineating key technical concepts in an accessible manner. The book's focus on developments in the European Union (EU), the United States of America (US), and Australia allows readers to understand the challenges in the way of regulation, such as limits of federal and local powers, lack of technical standards, and insufficient data relating to drones. One of the key strengths of the book is the insight by experts and legal practitioners from relevant regions. This aspect, however, also makes it more useful for practitioners and industry players than for academic scholars. It provides more descriptive and, to some extent, comparative analyses of different regulations than critical and in-depth analyses of key regulatory challenges. The authors also draw readers' attention to entities which are active participants of drone regulation. An unsettling obscurity is the lack of adequate emphasis on the Joint Authorities for Rule Making on Unmanned Systems (JARUS) organization, as their work directly translates into regulatory changes in the EU and US.