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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
How about this:
1) If you land on an object <100km on its longest axis and remain for one year, it's yours in perpetuity. If you leave before then, the object becomes unowned.
2) If you land on an object >100km on its longest axis and remain for one year, a circle around your landing spot 100km in diameter is yours in perpetuity. No-one else may land in your circle during your first year for the purpose of claiming ownership (tho' they can of course visit if you let them) and if you leave, the land becomes unowned.
3) If you land on an object on which insufficient land remains for your 100km circle, and you remain for one year, you get the largest possible circle without overlapping anyone elses around your landing point. If you feel hard done by, you should've picked something else to stake your claim on.
There, property rights in space solved.
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)
What happens if you send a probe to land on a spot on Mars and begin construction over a 5 year period of an elaborate base. Then somebody else beats you to occupying it?
Any reasonable scenario for inhabiting another planet will probably involve robotic fabrication long before humans show up.
Or, suppose the USA begins a 100 year extensive multi-quadrillion-dollar project to terraform Mars. Does it gain the entire planet as a result? Or can anybody land on the new paradise and stake their own claim as soon as the air is remotely breathable?
There are going to be a number of murky issues for some time to come. Things like this used to be settled via might-makes-right - but they didn't have nuclear weapons back then. Going all out at war over ownership of a big piece of land used to be commonplace - now it would just kill off the entire human race.
The problem is that settling an asteroid or planet could be very expensive. If there is no ownership incentive, then it won't be tried - except by isolated research teams. The most effective way to inhabit a planet like Mars is probably full-scale terraforming. It would probably be the cheapest solution on a planetwide scale, but of course it would cost a fortune. Unless you end up with a single Earth governemnt which can just tax the entire human race to pay for it, how do you reward the people who come up with the funds?
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)