Space Solar Power Review Vol 13 Num 1&2

The UN treaty sanction against sovereignty in space must be overruled, modified, or distinguished. The three legal basis for accomplishing this are as follows: 1. Denial that any enforceable sanction exists as to private citizens and non-ratifying nations. 2. Distinguishment of the new Metanation as proposed here was not contemplated by the 1967 Treaty and otherwise not sanctioned because it is a space nation created to administer the "common heritage of mankind." 3. Admit the sanction as a nation and adopt another treaty to overrule the unwanted portions of it. (To this end, the authors have drafted a proposed Model Treaty on Jurisdiction In Outer Space, which is available in the Space Governance Journal.) Advantages of a New Governance Strategy The proposed strategy would utilize existing United Nations Charter provisions to establish a new entity for space governance which holds title in fee simple absolute for ownership purposes, acting as trustee on behalf of the Common Heritage of Mankind. With the assistance of the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, as well as the UN Committee on Peaceful Use of Outer Space, a series of stages could be inaugurated to bring the new orbital government into being for the New Millenium. An initiative has begun on a private citizen level so existing treaty sanction is irrelevant during this phase. To this end, interested parties filed incorporation papers on August 12, 1993, in the U.S. State of Colorado to establish United Societies in Space (USIS) as a non-profit corporation. This pro-space, citizen supported association will seek, in turn, to obtain status as a recognized Non-Govemment Organization (N.G.O.) at the United Nations. There USIS hopes to become a clearinghouse and forum for the global space community and its varied space organizations and agencies. Later in this decade, the preliminaiy process would be pursued to initiate Metanation through a quasi-govemmental undertaking with subsidiaries or "authorities" for the purpose of raising private funding to underwrite space macroprojects. These are primarily bonding authorities which would start the essential work of of the new entity by financing space industrialization, such as on the Moon, through an independent system of space economics [7]. If a Lunar Port Authority were created through this approach, for example, then leases could be offered to private developers making investment, commercial activities, and even settlement more feasible on the Moon. In time other authorities, such as a Mars Port Authority, could be created on this first model throughout the Solar System. By the beginning of the 21st Century, the inauguration of a space nation, whatever its eventual appellation, would be advanced by the drafting of a Metanation Constitution and Declaration of Interdependence. The latter documents would benefit from the formulations of Institute of Space Law, especially in the publications of its members, such as Space Law and American Space Law [8] as well as Smithsonian Institution's efforts to compose "A Declaration of First Principles for the Governance of Space Societies," explained in the seminal book, Envoys of Mankind [9], Furthermore,

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