So, if you really love the prospect of owning a huge chunk of planet Mars and saving the Space Treaty (and thus all humanity as well!), then do something amazing … Join The Martians Now … CLICK HERE!
Well now, what’s new?..
Last weekend, Tom Whipple (Science Editor at The Times) did a great article on our Mars land Claim. He does well in highlighting the withered state of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST). The recent Artemis Accords are also given a little scrutiny:
Click to see THE TIMES latest article on The Mars Land Claim (The Times has covered the claim in three separate articles over the last 4 years).
It would have been great to hear more of the opinions of professor De Man … he has significant concerns WRT the ramifications of the Artemis Accords.
Unfortunately, Tom omitted to mention our USP (unique selling point): we are now a pan multinational communal celestial land claim. This took quite a bit of work (tracking down Marshall Islanders and citizens of Vatican City is a bit tricky … thank goodness for the internet and email).
Now this unique claim composition (communal/shared and pan-multinational) shares the same legal foundations as the 1979 Moon Agreement. This agreement is a rather poorly ratified Treaty (although I note France and India did sign). It was developed at UN COPUOS through 100% consensus. This included the American delegation (mainly top US Gov lawyers representing the Carter Administration). However, political/commercial motivations took over and lead to a change of view on the part of the US (especially when the Reagan administration came in). Thus the US did not sign and so many others followed suit. Nevertheless, it is still a very legitimate Treaty in legal terms. It was developed in harmony with the existing space laws (namely the 1967 Treaty). It added some more elements without damaging the existing Treaty laws. It contained the pronouncement that celestial land was the “Common Heritage of Mankind”. Many top lawyers agree that this represents, de facto, a communal celestial land claim on behalf of all humanity. Thus, our claim, comprising people from all nations in equitable numbers, is well founded in customary international space law. There is nothing to suggest that it could not be.
So, this is pivotal. We now have a VERY technically correct legal claim to celestial land. We have weaknesses of scale (the strong lasers only have a very, very, small positive effect on the geo-atmosphere of Mars) but not in construct. Even with the weaknesses, we assert that we deserve access to a fair court/forum/registry with jurisdiction to appraise such a claim. UN COPUOS is the obvious first stop … although it could require the services of Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) to resolve a dispute over land title registration. The PCA have in fact written to us to advise they stand ready to arbitrate on this (with their “optional Rules for disputes arising from activities in Outer Space”), subject to the necessary consent from COPUOS.
The Court Office for the Court of Appeal (London, UK) has informed us that our application to appeal (appealing the initial high court decision) has advanced through the long queue and is soon to be allocated to a Judge. We have mildly higher hope of success this time. The High Court Judge had agreed with the UK Government that it was possible that out claim could be legitimate in international law, but that didn’t mean the UK Government had to help us get to a fair international trial/appraisal. Well we disagree. We assert that our claim to celestial land possession is arguably actual … sufficient to engage A1P1 and A6 of the European Convention of Human Rights (brought into UK law by the HRA 1998). This means that the UK Gov does have a positive obligation to facilitate our access to a fair trial … the UN is the logical location for this … and indeed, UNOOSA have told us that the delegation of a state member must introduce the matter of our claim to the committee (in order to have it appraised). So far the UK Gov has refused to help (and the High Court Judge agreed with them). We will see what the Court of Appeal judge has to say. If we get another negative result we will then optimally present our claim to the European Court of Human Rights, ECtHR (we cannot do this until national legal system is exhausted). If accepted by ECtHR (we do have some tricky barriers to entry/acceptance, but think we can deal with them), then we are confident of a positive result… the court there is much more progressive in its interpretation/application of the law AND does have the clout to mandate the UK Gov to present our claim to the UN.
We may not even need to go that far … now that we have co-claimants from every nation on Earth, any one of the nations represented at COPUOS (95 currently) can decide to present the matter of our claim to the committee. Some nations would be more politically motivated to present such a communal claim to the UN. We now it would be a hot potato for the UN to deal with … why? … because our claim is very technically correct. That makes it tricky to knock it back.
So we are confident that when it finally gets to the UN, it will cause big waves … and hopefully a JOLT towards a cohesive effort to update the space treaty: perhaps to initially ‘deal’ with our claim, but also (as per our demands) to incorporate some new provision for space exploitation … meaning the OST stays relevant to the modern world and thus its strength against aggressive weaponization and nukes is re-imposed.
What if this doesn’t happen: then we sadly do not get to make us all safer with an update to the flagging Space Treaty (OST). BUT, we can still deliver on some of the hopes of our co-claimants. Some of our members will have joined us (either for free with a voucher of for a tiny cost <$20) with hopes to realize our shared political goal of an update to OST; but others will have done so with hopes to one day own a big chunk of Martian land. Well, even if we get properly stalled, we can now confidently assert that our technically/legally correct communal land claim has been filed with the UN (receipt was confirmed). In future, maybe 150 years, when territorial property rights become legitimate/feasible, our communal claim WILL need to be appraised and managed. I do expect that the Great, great, great, great grandchildren of our current co-claimants will be offered $millions to free up the land for giant celestial mining/terra-forming corporations.
So, watch this space ….
AND … if you really fancy the chance of owning a huge chunk of planet Mars and saving the Space Treaty (and thus all humanity is safer), then do something amazing … Join The Martians Now … CLICK HERE!
NOTE: we are now looking forward to working soon with the New Yorker, Conde Nast and The Oddity Forge. Check back here for updates in the near future.
MR