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Lawyers In Space...
colonist writes "The Christian Science Monitor presents an interesting overview of space law. Some want space to be shared by all: 'Outer space is a province of all mankind. There is not, and should not be, any privatization of outer space. It is a common thing that should belong to all.' Some people have claimed parts of the moon or Mars. In response, a lawyer has claimed the sun, 'to show how ridiculous a property-rights system in outer space would be if it were based solely on claims unsubstantiated by any actual possession.' The Space Settlement Initiative wants official recognition of land claims made by those who establish human settlements on the moon or Mars."
...exploration really takes off, property rights will become of paramount importance. In fact, I predict that, in the next 100 years, there will be a terrestrial war over something in our Solar System that is rich in minerals. While I have no love for lawyers, the forward-thinking people in our society had better work this stuff out NOW.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Even hinting that property and commercial enterprise is not going to be possible in space is a sure way to cripple space exploration. All large scale exploration is done for either commericial or military gain, take your pick.
For the near future though, exerting property rights over anything you can not "meaningfully control" goes against all the common law up to this point.
Does this situation sound familiar to any US-based people? As a hint, it sounds fairly familiar to me as a Brit.
Cheers,
Ian
The piece of rock we are standing on has been around for a while too, and we seem to be doing a great job of claiming it. Personally, if someone wants to pay to "own" some nebula - let them. They will also have to deal with things like - eminent domain, and abandanment laws, as well as the property taxes (come on we need to fund the NASA school somehow).
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
"Outer space is a province of all mankind," says Sylvia Ospina, a member of the board of directors at the International Institute of Space Law. "There is not, and should not be, any privatization of outer space. It is a common thing that should belong to all."
This is completely untenable if you want development of space. Not to mention that the idea of space being a province of "mankind" is pompous; although we may be the only guys around locally, the entire universe isn't exactly our oyster.
Companies aren't going to spend the hundreds of billions needed for facility developments on the Moon, Mars, Titan, and more without having property rights and mineral rights to those location.
Keep it free, if you want -- but you'll also be keeping it bare.
10 years ago there was a real question over ownership of "cyberspace." Some of us thought it should be an apolitical place where real-world laws need not apply. Want to register the domain name McDomalds.com for yourself? Why not? Who ever said copyrights applied to the Internet? Now it's hard to remember how that made sense.
I predict that in 500 years, today's questioning whether property rights should hold in space will seem just as quaint and hard to understand. People never fail to fence things off and keep them for themselves if they can.
Imagine if these guys were around as the American west was being settled. Or when colonists were first ariving in the Americas.
Actually, in the latter case it was. The pilgrims initially attempted a communist-style society - from each according to his means, to each accoreding to his needs. They nearly starved to death. The next season they switched to a more capitalistic system and wound up with a surplus.
These clowns continually ignore the metaphysical truth that property rights are causal. If an individual cannot do as he chooses with the crops he grows grow, he will not willingly grow them. While you can compel an individual to grow them at the point of a gun, you cannot use the same method to get him to invent ways to harvest more efficiently. Brute force compulsion cannot inspire innovation - just manual labor at best.
Preventing private property rights in space will provide no incentive to develop it. The solution is simple - roll out like America's Western expansion. You can't claim anything until you set foot out there, and put some reasonable limit on how much land each individual can claim when there is a shortage.
It's not iron-clad in my mind, but it's my gut feeling.
Besides, except for a few wackos, I really doubt that many people will want to live there. Mars is a big freakin' rock! Sure, some sci-fi geeks /think/ they want to go, but generally people need some green.
The future of space settlements is in manufactured settlements with earth-like environments (and spin-gravity), not planetary settlements.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
As a hint, it sounds fairly familiar to me as a Brit.
The problem with what you're describing is you're assuming that all the space settlements will be done by terrestrial governments, causing an independence-day event, 2176.
While we had the Dutch East India Companies providing the transport, the future space model will not be the same. You won't see US Colonies, or Chinese Colonies -- the costs are too prohibitive to be justified to a terrestrial power. The paradigm is shifting to true private enterprise, and the space colonies will be a "FutureCorp" colony and a "Maximum Space Travel" colony.
You want to be a colonist? Sign up at FutureCorp's office. They'll hire a "Governor" who was a former Senator but wants to make more money (and escape sex scandals). You'll have a new allegiance, that to the company.
These ventures will still have terrestrial presences, but will paricipate on a level playing field with other nations, representing the concerns of their space-based constituency.
Property 'ownership' should be on physical presence basis. If business A spends $20 billion to create a sustained colony on Mars, then their buildings/development should be respected. If the colony discovers something like oil, they have rights to that oil since they spent the money/effort to get there (Hallimartian - CEO: Dick Cheney's head).
This does not mean the entire planet is theirs.
The sun cannot be 'owned' by anyone (that's 1 helluva Nomex suit if someone can land on the Sun).
One the other hand, if there are indigenous inhabitants (future-speak) found on a planet, they trump the visitors.
Yeah because the rights of the Native Americans and Aboriginees to their respective traditional lands and hunting grounds really discouraged settlemnents of their continents because their presence was respected as a claim.
Presence is not enough to claim anything when someone greedier and with bigger/better weapons comes along. Based on a lot of our history we really can have no complains if an advanced alien race comes along and says 'oh look a nice shiny blue/green planet, we'll have that for the kids to play on, just kill those pesky humans first so the kids dont pick up any germs'.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
You know, you are so right. Lawyers shouldn't be able to make laws. Anyone who has spent time studying the law, obviously knows too much to be able to write a good law. We need more amature law makers. I'm sure they would do a much better job.
You idea has so much merit that I think we should extend it further. Computers are very difficult to understand for people who know anything about how computers work. I think we need to pass a constitutional ammendment that prevents those have studied computer science or engineering from designing computers. It should make for much better computers that everyone can understand.
Perhpas we should extend this to doctors and writers as well. I don't want complex medical advice. I wouldn't want to read a book by someone who has studied writing.
Ok, enough with the sarcasm. It's just that your idea is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever had the displeasure of reading.
Lawyers are not allowed to hold public office
This kind of thinking causes big problems!
Follow me here... Politicians are people who (a) WRITE LAWS and (b) ENFORCE LAWS. I very much like it that my legislators, who we put there to write good laws, see inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement within existing and proposed laws, and create the legal framework for our society.
Further, when we have wiener-politicians who don't understand the law either create or enforce them, they end up causing lots of problems for both the public and the courts.
So, PLEASE elect lawyers as politicians, that's one thing they're good for. Further, please elect experienced lawyers that know their way around case law so they don't have to get on-the-job experience at taxpayer expense (where expense is measured in the human terms of suffering under misworded statutes).
Of course, everyone in a legislature doesn't have to be a lawyer, just so there's enough of them there to point out when something is jurisprudentially incorrect.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
a) there is a strong presence of governments on earth that have signed on to the Antarctic treaty, while in outer space there is not. As a consequence, someone colonising a small part of a planet would likely be able to maintain effective possession of a land area there, and the longer they hold it the less likely it would be that it would be tolerable for many countries to try to remove them by force.
b) Most of Antarctica has been claimed by one ore more states. If one were to ignore the antarctic treaty, there would be minimal basis for anyone else but some subset/intersection of the countries who have claims and the countries who maintain current scientific missions to Antarctica. As a result there is little possibility for a claim to have any shred of legal backing unless they get the support of one of the stronger claimaints. This could very well happen, but still presents an obstacle that's not present for outer space.
I think you'll see property claims for outer space upheld eventually, but only once they can be defended by actual possession over a period of time.
The current treaties aren't signed by nearly all nations, and they're furthermore written from a standpoint of the signatories and/or UN representing all of mankind and mankind having rights to pass laws for the entire universe. This again breaks down the moment there are practical means for someone to colonise outer space but not practical means to mount military operations to stop them. (Not to mention if there turns out to be life on other planets)
Anyone who studies history knows that "ownership" of any piece of land or other property can only be secured by the ability to defend that ownership.
The USA is only owned by its people because we came together to claim such ownership and we have defended that ownership, even to the exent of war.
Everything that a person owns in this country or in this world he or she only posseses by virutue of the law. It is our laws and law enforcement which defend your right to keep your property.
So my point is, when it comes to claiming property on any unclaimed piece of land, on Earth or in Space, your right to that land can only be acheived by virtue of the law which is to say that the virtue of the people is what lets you claim land or property. If the people don't agree that the property is yours, your right to that property is forfeit unless you plan on defending your right to that property, which usually means either a lot of time in some sort of high court, or more probable: war. Let us not forget that the main reason war exists is because of the notion of property.
There will be war in space, its not a matter of if, but a matter of when.
The problem is not really with the lawyers. Yes, I'm serious. Take a look at Jewish law if you want an example of this (the book of Leviticus in the Bible). No lawyers involved, but "thou shalt not kill/murder" wound up with a number of variations - depending on the circumstances. Laws become convoluted as the worst offenders find loopholes and those are sealed. Lawyers have added to that problem by making a career of "definitions" (as in "the definition of murder is ..., therefore this is not murder"). But the initial problem lies with the criminal element which will break laws and seek ways to avoid the repercussions of breaking those laws.
... completely unacceptable to them. Of course, they can't make it obvious that they are shifting the burden to those below them on the income scale, so highly complex and confusing laws are born.
Never mind the criminals, who do you think gets the tax code rewritten regularly? Those who regularly seek out loopholes, which must then be closed (more tax law). Any simplified tax code would likely mean the top few percent would pay more than they do now
(All this should not be taken to mean I think lawyers are worthwhile, or that they should become politicians, but it does mean they don't hold full responsibility for the state of law in the U.S.)
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Thank you! This country would be hell without lawyers as politicians. Why? Because the earmark of a good lawyer is the ability to find weaknesses - weaknesses in your opponent's arguments and weaknesses in the law. These are the things that also make a good politician. What, do you want to vote for someone who isn't going to be able to find weaknesses in the side whose views you oppose to exploit? Do you want to vote for someone who isn't going to catch the loopholes or subtle consequences in a bill that someone else tries to sneak across?
Of course not. You want a person who, in addition to supporting your views, knows how to persuade when needed, to exploit when needed, and to find legal weaknesses, all to get your viewpoint across. Otherwise, your side is going to get trounced. Now, I'm not saying that lawyers are the only people who can do this, or that all lawyers can - far from it. But, the earmark of an effective lawyer is the same thing as the earmark of an effective politician.
Lawyers are pretty demonized in this country - only used car salesmen are demonized worse. But they do serve a vital role. Not every one is an "ambulence chaser" - lawyers are also the people who fight the DMCA, who fight the religious right's attempts to force prayer in public schools, the ones who fight legitimate malpractice cases, etc. They're also the people who defend the DMCA, defend the religious right, and fight bogus malpractice claims. They're people; plain and simple. You need someone digging through everything on both sides if you want even a chance, however small, of true justice being upheld.
Will it always happen? Of course not. Not all lawyers are equal, and even the best lawyers don't always manage to give a full view of both sides. Some juries and judges can be biased. But they're an important part in trying to get the truth out.
Yes, I... I've heard good things about the mud. Lots of people talking about the mud...