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

Perhaps we'll end up with a traveling court, going into orbit around Mars, or Europa or Luna and holding court via tele presence. (There's a SciFi story here). Such a court would likely be a self contained, mobile colony of lawyers and judges. How they would enforce their judgements is quite another matter...

Hello
Part of the assumption here is that present systems work well for space. They don't.
If the national govs dont have jurisdiction then the UN would not either. Mutual agreements at the national level seem to work a whole lot better whether it be between two nations or two worlds.
The Hague court is limited to International relations on earth and directly affecting earth to at least LEO and possibly GEO. Beyond that, the rules of nature change significantly from the the normal court dealings with thata Court for Space would be needed. That court should be *in space*. One requirement to be a judge is usually a residence of some sort. Another is that the plantiff and defendant show up in court. This would be an expensive proposition for earth bound judges adjudicating an issue in space.
Earth-based Space Law is based on the Law of the Sea. So making claims at-a-distance will be difficult. Planting a flag and having a military army and fleet to defend any land claims usually helps. Under English Law possession dominates. Sharia law in space might be interesting...
Usually, the first step is that land is seized or purchased by a government. Then the land is parceled out in land grants to colonists (Oklahoma) or annexed (various European countries). Keep in mind that even with a land grant, the government can still seize land from citizens, usually legally.
Space colonization will reach a point where self-governance - independant of earth - will be required. Whether that occurs during the Wild West period of expansion across the Solar System or when there are a million or billion colonists off planet is problematic.
Colonization usually involves a parade of folks from the colonists with hired protection to the military outpost to the local sheriff. Then the government really moves in with police and finally with agencies.
Space colonization will be truly unforgiving. Just getting to the next planet takes major planning with a tremendous amount of support. The earth based support requirements will decline over time and hopefully a colony will grow to self-sufficiency.
The limits of space justice will probably be based on the time to communicate and the distance traveled as well as the cost of entering or leaving a particular gravity well. The speed of light and the associated communication delay might define a virtual courtroom to a short delay measured in seconds.
The next 100 years will prove to be interesting times.
David
Human nature has not changed in the thousands or tens of thousands of years. Not likely to change anytime soon either. We can hope for the best, but probably should plan for the worst as well.

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