have been engaged in the development of legal principles, rules, and standards for these subjects. It will also require an assessment of the possible future roles of such institutions. Such institutions will continue to be international in scope. Further, they will continue to be influenced by the lively forces of science and technology and by the human values that constantly give direction to political-legal judgments. Pragmatic considerations will play a substantial role in what appears below. International organizations will be treated as having the principal responsibility for obtaining viable legal principles, rules, and standards. It will be their function, taking into account the needs and wants of sovereign nation-states, to obtain common denominators. Different techniques are available to obtain such common agreement. For example, with the United Nations General Assembly Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) operating on the basis of consensus, its final agreements will have to command themselves to the strong support of the States composing the world community. Having arrived at their agreements these States will then be critically charged with securing the day-to-day implementation of the agreements. Such national implementation will not be possible unless all affected States, presumably a very large number of the community, are persuaded that the international agreement will serve and satisfy their respective mutual interests. The keystone to the implementation and enforcement of international legal and political promises is simply the realization that an orderly and harmonious implementation of agreed commitments will serve the general needs of all.
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