THURSDAY, MAY 12 1966. The Rule Of Law In Space

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31057, 12 May 1966, Page 18

THURSDAY, MAY 12 1966. The Rule Of Law In Space

In a series of resolutions, the General Assembly of the United Nations has already endorsed the principle that the conquest of the moon should serve to bring men together, not divide them further by mistrust and hostility. There is nothing new in the American suggestion for an international treaty calling for co-operation in lunar exploration and completely banning claims to sovereignty, regardless of who may get there first. When he applauded last August’s eight-day orbital flight in Gemini V by the American astronauts, Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad, President Johnson also appealed for an international attitude towards space exploration, as an arena in which co-operation might help .to ease world tensions. Those who ventured into space, he said, did so as the envoys of all mankind, and what they found there should belong to all mankind.

The treaty which Mr Johnson now hopes to see drafted and accepted by the so-called space Powers would give operative force to this idealist conception. Nor, at the present rate of progress in the major contest for space priorities between the United States and the Soviet Union, is there time to spare if the legal issues involved in a moon landing are to be clarified. Mr Johnson has usefully outlined the elements of the treaty he envisages, vital among them that the right of exploration and use of any celestial body to which access by manned flight might become possible shall be universally recognised; that no question of sovereignty or the stationing of weapons shall arise: and that astronauts should themselves be regarded as members of a kind of international brotherhood.

How close to reality the third consideration comes we may soon learn. For the Russian “ soft ” landing on the moon last February brought appreciably nearer the day when men will go to the moon to stay and work for indeterminate periods, conceivably to establish settlements and way stations for further voyaging into a cosmic hinterland. Exposure to common dangers, little understood as yet, will impress on the lunar pioneers the need to co-operate for mutual survival—in relation to which all questions of race or language are petty. It must be hoped that Mr Johnson’s initiative will reveal the widest sense of responsibility among the nations. Mr Goldberg’s exposition of the treaty aims before the United Nations’ special committee on outer space should give ample opportunity for expressions of opinion, and for that reason will be eagerly awaited. As has been pointed out, there is an admirable precedent for a moon pact in the 12-nation treaty signed in Washington on December 1, 1959, “ recog- “ nising that it is in the interest of all mankind that “ Antarctica shall continue forever to be used “exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not “ become the scene or object of international “discord”. The parallel is the more persuasive because of the presence, among the Antarctic pact signatories, of the Soviet Union and the United States. Relatively man is almost as much a newcomer in polar exploration as in space discovery. In the former he has found the elements a sufficient opponent, and the call for co-operation clearer and more imperative for that reason. Antarctic experience at least suggests that a comparable singleness of purpose could be brought to the task of ending dangerous rivalries in space. What must be recognised is that the need for banning military activity and national claims among the nearer celestial bodies within our ken is no longer fanciful. It will be a moving achievement if, as a prelude to the years of high adventure that are opening in space discovery, a treaty can be negotiated, in a spirit of sincerity, to ensure that no human life will ever be lost there at the hands of another human being.