Consitiutions of the High Frontier

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "babbler36"
> How do you the settlements in space would be organized? I think
there
> would a central government for each high planetary orbit. It would
> confederal than federal, more like the UN, the EU or Swizerland,
than
> Australia, Canada or the USA.

Just for the record, Canada defines itself as a confederation because
of the wide range of powers given to the provinces.

It would mainly be a milatary-economic
> organization to defend the settlement from attacks from Earth or a
> colonized Mars/Venus/other planets and to premote trade and
commerce
> among its members. It would layout where settlements would orbit,
and
> build new settlements as well.
>
> Since the settlements are not physical connected, the central
> govenment could not become overpower indivdual settlement
government.
> They would regulate the internal politics of the settlement.

I don't think that you could get a settlement government that was not
based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html). AFAIK this is only
statement of rights that the bulk of humankind has agreed to. Almost
certainly the first colony would be so expensive that it would have
to be created as a joint project by many, perhaps most, nations. It
would probably take longer than the construction time to get those
nations to agree on a different standard.

The UDHR is very liberal and even first world governments are often
in violation of some of its provisions. So instead of a military-
style comand-and-control government, you would more likely have, in
theory, a more liberal regime than any earthly government.

Ed