Could Legal 'Loophole' Lead to Land Claims on Other Worlds?

Hi Everyone,

If national governments don't have jurisdiction, couldn't an agency to handle off-planet property rights be set up through the U.N.? Such an agency could draft rules that would avoid appearances of bias between claims, and nations, and an additional branch of the international court of justice at The Hague could be established to adjudicate disputes.

Given that any off planet colony will only be viable if it can extract material from its immediate environment, perhaps some sort of a 3-D homestead rule would be best. EG. any off planet colony would be granted all volume within 5000 meters of established, permanent shirtsleeve environment with a carrying capacity of 10 people, title to lapse to the public domain, if environment not maintained. I know, as a potential colonist, I would not want to be more than 5000 m from maintained pressure, liquid water, food supplies, and a comfortable temperature, no matter how good my space suit.

on second thought, 5000m may be too much. How far would YOU want to have to go, if your space suit sprang a leak? Maybe 500 meters?

Nice thing about such a proposal, is it would tie property rights to colonist worker safety, and, god knows, something like that will be required, if colonization is to be viable. And it would establish the precedent that Human beings must be able to survive anywhere that is to be claimed as human property; a precedent that would prevent many abuses.

How about we even add that to all private property claims here on Earth, and start re-connecting duty and responsibility to property rights? It would be simple on Earth. Just build and maintain a hut with emergency rations, and a water tank, every km across a land holding, and every km along any mine tunnel, with emergency air tanks, in case of tunnel collapse. Surely this represents the minimum standard of care for public safety that we should expect of any land owner? Note: the survival services don't have to be provided for free. I expect all space colonists will have to pay, somehow, for the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the food they eat. I would only insist that the land owner make minimal survival provisions for anyone in his volume. Accidental trespass happens. we just don't want anyone to die from it.
Two very good modellings of workable socio-ecomomic customs, for solar system colonization, can be found in the Robert A Heinlein Novels, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and "The Cat who Walks through Walls."

If we can't invent laws and customs for space colonists AT LEAST as well thought out as the ones in those stories, I fear our off-planet colonization attempts will be as messy as the history of earth colonization by Europo-American people was. We commit enough atrocity at home. Let's take our best nature into space, not our worst.

All the Best

Doug