MAR 98-084

Legislation and Space Law Concepts Proposed for the Eventual Industrialization of Mars by Man
James J. Hurtak, Ph.D., AFFS Corporation. jjh@affs.org

Mars offers the opportunity for the US and world powers to establish significant cooperation in exo-industrialization and exo-commercialization. A new set of ‘Space Law’ requirements is proposed for human settlement, scientific discovery, and industrial explorations as a result of strategic overlays of international cooperation and evolutionary growth of bottom-up technical validation of conditions favorable for international Martian exploration. A closer evaluation of needed laws clarifying “sovereign territory” versus the “common heritage of mankind” is examined according to international and politically determined agendas supported by technical trade studies so as to avoid confusing and wasteful uses of planetary resources and technology that may cross the boundaries of national logic and security.

 

Here an approach is applied to the task of developing a robust set of comprehensive legal requirements for the major system elements and mission scenarios necessary for utilizing potential energy and mineral resources. Commercial activities in outer space will function in a way similar to that of the Law of the Seas, where the resources in outer space are open to all. The Law of the Seas has often been stated as the guidelines of international space law. Space must begin to be defined as either res communis or res commercium as interplanetary activity increases in the 21st Century. In usage of the former form, we would envision the possibility of international ownership of satellites, exploration and development through an international regime or a Cosmic Development Corporation (CODEC).
References:
[1] Basic documents of International Law, 3rd Edition. Ian Brownlie, Ed., Oxford University Press, 1985, p.205.
[2] Convention on the Law of the Sea (Part I-XVII) United Nations Records, April 30, 1982.
[3] J. J. Hurtak, “Extraterrestrial Imperative and the New Image of Man in Space,” paper delivered at the United Nations, October 1996.