indiscriminately as to prevent innovative and creative uses of the space environment. In urging the adoption of the Liability Agreement the United States did not depart from its obligation under Article 9 of the Principles Treaty. This requires consultation among States concerned over activities or experiments in the space environment that could have potentially harmful consequences. If it were thought that the SPS could be productive of such harms, it would be the duty of the United States to seek consultation prior to the use of such a space object. As a firm proponent of Article 9 there could be no doubt that the United States would offer such consultation. However, the consultation involves diplomatic cooperation and compromise. It does not constitute a veto by another State of a proposed U.S. activity. The assessment of international rights and duties for a SPS has produced supportable conclusions. First, since the spatial level at which a geostationary space object would orbit is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty or by any other means, a nation-state can use but cannot establish sovereignty in that area. The right to use the orbital level, in order to avoid charges of a "de facto" or "de jure" claim of appropriation, would have to be temporary, e.g., non-exclusive. No preemptive right to the orbital slot would be created by such temporary or non-exclusive use. Second, for the same reasons that the orbital slot area is subject to the res communis principle, the solar energy located at geostationary orbital levels is a res communis. Even more than the orbital slot the solar energy is an unlimited and ever-renewing natural resource. Third, the radio spectrum is a world natural resource. For it to be used equitably, efficiently, and economically it is necessary that
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