FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1959
1959 - 2388.PDF
18 September 1959 271 NO EARTHLY USE? THIS report of the second Space Law Colloquium held at the NewHall, Lincoln's Inn, on September 4 (under the auspices of the tenth congress of the International Astronautical Federation), is divided intofour main sections: (1) What is a colloquium? (2) procedure; (3) points from some of the papers; and (4) a preliminary appraisal.W HAT is a Colloquium? A venerable law dictionary givesone meaning of the word: "A talking together: a con- versation." Such conversation or talking together as didtake place in the New Hall did not take place from the platform as an interchange of views between speakers and audience. Thiswas a great disappointment and destroyed the value of the occa- sion for those who were unable to meet participants at the varioussocial functions which were arranged. At the outset the chairman of the meeting (Mr. C. N. Shawcross,Q.C.) invited delegates to submit any un-notified papers for incorporation in the proceedings of the colloquium. Thus thetotal input is not yet known. Other papers were handed in but are not so far generally available, and therefore no more than apreliminary assessment can be made of one day's goings-on. This was not a true colloquium but more like a written symposium,enlivened by authors who read their papers. Procedure. It is to the credit of the organizers that, withoutcounting addresses from the chair, twenty speakers were able to address the meeting in a very brief day's business in which boththe morning and the afternoon sessions started late. The morning was opened by I.A.F. president Haley who introduced and handedover to chairman Shawcross and co-chairman Prof. J. C. Cooper. The chairman opened by reading a message of goodwill fromPresident Eisenhower and announced the attendance of a U.S. Congressional delegation—one of whose members, CongressmanV. L. Anfuso, opened with his paper Is Space the Way to Peace and Abundance? Mr. Shawcross promised that he would submita written paper himself in due course, and suggested that basic definitions might be tackled first and that all lawyers concernedwith these problems should be armed with some understanding of technical matters. Co-chairman Cooper spoke with the brief and dignified modestywhich befits a life-long scholar. He had come, he said, rather to listen than to contribute and he paid tribute to the English Innsof Court as the home of a respected system of law. He paused only to define law as rules of human conduct—a definition whichcould well have been repeated by each succeeding speaker. President Haley then spoke informally of the human andorganizational difficulties he encountered when trying to deal at an international level with some technical problems of thefirst importance—the allocation of radio frequencies for use in space exploration.Next came Dr. Welf Heinrich, Prince of Hanover, who reaffirmed his viewpoints of the previous year in a succinct paper Circle ofThoughts. Dr. Heinrich is rightly famous as the first known person to have submitted a doctoral thesis on space-law. It becameevident that the "colloquium" was about to discard the possi- bilities of discussion when, in response to an inquiry from thefloor, the chairman accepted the question but ruled that it could not be answered unless there was time available at the end of theday. The chairman then invited written questions for considered replies, but his invitation was not taken up throughout the day. Other members of the presiding panel who spoke in the morningsession included: — Prof. D. Goedhuis (Holland), who noted that the idea wasgaining ground that outer space was a res communis or res extra commercium—incapable of appropriation by any nation. Dr. H. Safavi (Persia), who thought of the vertical limit of sovereignty as a nation's "front door." Dr. M. Smirnoff (Yugoslavia), who thought that the situationwas comparable to the failure of the 1910 Paris Convention, when a private group of lawyers had to work out solutions to preparefor the 1919 Convention which survived till 1944. He had gone so far as to draft a 14-article convention himself which includedinter alia no national sovereignty in outer space; control by an international organization and a restriction of the usage of spaceto peaceful purposes. The afternoon session got off to a flying start by the passingof two surprise resolutions which effectively dissolved the 150-man Permanent Legal Committee of the I.A.F. and substituted anunnamed "international institute of space law" together with a startled ad hoc committee of six. The theme of the afternoon wasundoubtedly "Let's get on with the job!" Possibly it is only of concern to the I.A.F. that these resolutions and elections tookplace in an atmosphere more reminiscent of a comic opera than a session of lawyers. The ad hoc committee's purpose is "to draft bye-laws for theorganization and government of the institute which will be in accordance with the constitution of the I.A.F. and subject to the approval of the council of the I.A.F." The committee is com-posed of Mr. Shawcross (chairman), Mr. Haley (secretary), Dr. Smirnoff (Yugoslavia), Dr. Gerlach (Germany), Prof. Cooperand M. Homburg (France). One more sensation completed the day's procedural excitement.The seventh speaker in the afternoon session was Dr. I. H. Ph. de Rode-Verschoor (Holland) on The Influence of Outer SpaceExploration on Mankind. This was a paper on the scheduled list and pre-prints were available, but when Dr. Rode-Verschoorwas drawing near the end of her remarks the chairman ruled that political questions should not be discussed and asked her toterminate her address with that in mind. The proceedings were drawn to a close by the chairman whoregretted that he had been unable to welcome the colloquium on behalf of the Masters of the Bench of Lincoln's Inn becausehe was not of that Honourable Society, but he called upon Prof. Cooper for a formal yote of thanks. Mr. Shawcross complimentedtwo speakers on the importance of their contributions—Mr. G. J. Feldman who, in a non-scheduled paper, gave a provisionalappraisal of the Report of the United Nations Legal Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space; and Mr. K. A. Finch, anoutstanding young American lawyer who had gallantly given precedence in the scheduled proceedings to Mrs. Galloway'sexcellent contribution (see below) and in consequence was only able to summarize one of the points from his longer paper.Mr. Shawcross emphasized what a massive work programme lay ahead—"So little time, so much to do"—and Prof. Cooperconcluded by expressing his envy of the scope available to younger men and hoped that they would find outer space a peacefulmedium in which to work. Points from Some of the Papers Is Space the Way to Peace and Abundance? by V. L. Anfuso of theScience and Astronautics Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. There are grave dangers in the deceptions of international diplomacy.The untold possibilities for peace and prosperity which are inherent in the exploration of space should be fruitful areas of international co-opera-tion. Within United Nations there should be a Committee on Space Co-operation with fair representation from East and West. The Future of National Sovereignty, by S. M. Beresford, SpecialCounsel, Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, U.S. Congress. There are too many difficulties at present in defining a vertical limitto the extent of sovereignty—moreover such a limit is inadequate on the defence purposes. It is far better to seek international agreement on thecontrol of specific activities in space and by this means evolve a series of legal rules. Toward Solving the Space Sovereignty Problem, by H. T. P. Binet,Honorary Secretary, Astronautical Society of Canada. Despite the difficulties admitted by ICAO and the fact that theU.S.S.R. is not a member, ICAO still appears to be the best agency for administering space rules—if sovereign states can agree that all thatis needed is a series of rules prescribing the use of space including air space. Thus the need for marking any boundary between air space andouter space would disappear. Territorial Claims to Celestial Bodies, by K. A. Finch, FederalCommunications Commission, Washington. Although the U.N. ad hoc committee regards the problem of explora-tion of celestial bodies as a low-priority task, recent information released from the U.S.S.R. suggests that their moon-probe will contain inter aliaelements to represent a Russian flag for the obvious purpose of release on to the lunar surface. This further suggests that the U.S.S.R. maybe preparing to assert sovereignty by means traditional in international law and the problem of international agreement on this topic is there-fore of the utmost urgency. Dynamic Limitation of the Freedom of Cosmic Space (in French),by E. Fonseca, Director, Centro de Estudos Astronauticos, Lisbon. Regions of control may be prescribed which will depend on whetherthe gravitational pull of the Earth or of a particular planet is the predominant effect. So, for example, there would be a right of freepassage for vehicles capable of escape velocity from a given planet, and a different regime for those only capable of orbiting. Vehiclesincapable of orbiting would fall into the traditional realm of air law. The United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses ofOuter Space: Accomplishments and Implications for Legal Problems, by Mrs. E. Galloway, Special Consultant, Committee on Aeronauticaland Space Sciences, U.S. Senate. In this excellent summary Mrs. Galloway describes and analyses thereport which the U.N. ad hoc committee will present to the General Assembly of U.N. The Legal Committee, which was charged with"The nature of legal problems which may arise in the carrying out of programmes to explore outer space," came to the broad conclusionthat premature codification of space law might hinder rather than help progress, and the IGY example of international co-operation may bea useful precedent indicating the consent of nations to future explora- tion programmes if based on a similar degree of international agreement.At least five priority problems were identified: — 1. Liability for injury or damage caused by space vehicles. '•<•••2. The allocation of radio frequencies to space vehicles. 3. Avoidance of interference between space vehicles and aircraft.4. Identification and registration of space vehicles and the co-ordina- tion of launchings.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
