Philippe Clerc is the chief officer of compliance and corporate ethics at the French Space Agency (CNES) since 2018 after having been its head of the legal department from 2007 to 2017.

He has built up his experience in matters of legal affairs and risk management regarding space programs and policy by occupying several positions and responsibilities within CNES, Arianespace, the private European Space launch operator (Arianegroup) and the French Ministry of Research and Space Affairs from 1998 to 2003 where he was involved in the law-making process of the French Space Act of 2008. After having initiated the first preliminary studies in 1999, he has been monitoring the development of French space law in the governmental and parliamentary processes up to the Act implementation between CNES and industry regarding licensing process and operations to be made at the Guina Launching Space Center. He has shared all his experience in this field by publishing a book, in 2018 called “Space law in the European context – national architecture, legislation and policy in France”, which has become an international reference on the subject.

It is in this capacity of influential and innovative lawyer that he was already distinguished between 2016 and 2019 by the Legal 500 editions of GC Powerlist for France.

He was appointed chief officer of compliance and corporate ethics in 2018 to define and implement a risk management policy in that field. Given CNES’ unique status as a public scientific and technical establishment of an industrial and commercial nature, this system should imperatively cover all the anti-corruption requirements of the French Sapin II law of 2016, whether for private or public companies, but also those related to scientific integrity and probity of technical engineering expertise following the research code and best practices in the profession.

As such, he is the unique reference for any ethical or anti-corruption report concerning the space agency. He also became the executive secretary of the Internal Ethics Committee and the future Space Mission Ethics Committee.

These professional achievements have been recognised by its peers at the 73rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) at Paris, on 18-22 September 2022 when selecting his article “Managing Compliance and Ethics Risks by space agencies in the context of new space”.

Philippe Clerc is also alumni of the French higher course on defense studies, the “Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale” (SN 53, 2000).

He also guest lectured on space policy and law, professional and space mission ethics codes, in many engineer’s schools and author of several papers, appraisal report in the field of law and ethics applicable to space activities.