“taking into particular consideration the interests and needs of the developing countries.” Article 137 of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea requires that no State shall claim or exercise sovereignty or sovereign rights over any part of the sea-bed and the ocean floor or its resources, nor shall any State or natural or juridicial person appropriate any part thereof. The 1979 Moon Treaty follows the same conceptual approach in Article 11. “The common heritage of mankind,” brings a revolutionary new element to international law, as it changes the control of newly discovered resources exploited from “res nulliu” to “res communis,” and vests this control with mankind as a whole, rather than with the sovereign master of the discovering party. Mankind, in turn, is represented by the Sea-Bed Authority, through which States Parties to the Convention organize and control deep sea-bed activities as trustees on behalf of Mankind, as is specified by Article 157, para. 9 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea. The existence of an international regime governing sea-bed utilization creates an obligation for all States to cooperate internationally in the exploration and use of the sea-bed and ocean floor. This cooperative regime is intended to facilitate equal participation of all States through the sharing of revenues, and the transfer of technology, requiring preferential treatment and protection from adversity when necessary for equal participation. The 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea places substantial restrictions on potential deep sea-bed miners. Affirmative action benefitting non-mining States is required. In order to administer the objectives of the treaty, jurisdiction over deep sea-bed mining is conferred on the Sea-Bed Authority. All States Parties to the Convention can participate in this Authority. In order to achieve equal distribution of sea-bed resources, two specific concepts are usually discussed in the absence of a provision for distributive justice: either a system of preference or a scheme of compensation. The “common heritage” principle and its supporting legal regime have been the main obstacle to industrial States with developed sea-bed mining technologies (i.e. the former Soviet Union and the United States of America) ratifying the Convention on the Law of the Sea. In contrast, the idea of the “common heritage of mankind” looks like manna from heaven to the developing countries. Clearly, international space law based on the principle of the “common heritage of mankind” would jeopardize commercial investment in the kinds of essentially economic projects discussed by the NASA report on Lunar Energy of July 1989. Indeed, this principle could make such programs economically infeasible. It is the belief of some that States are left with a wider field of permissible activities under the Moon Treaty than under the Law of the Sea because the Moon
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