Force JAG corps, asserted that the Roman maxim ex facto oritur jus (the law rises from fact) was an appropriate mode for developing the law of outer space.[1] While he was more receptive than the Air Force generally to the idea of a space convention, Menter's use of the Roman maxim dovetailed with the Air Force's concept of creating outer space law from actual facts or activities, the ad hoc approach, rather than from principles or theories. Colonel Menter's ICAF thesis was subsequently described by Maj Gert Robert W. Manss, The Judge Advocate General of the Air Force, as "one of the first major treatises in this new field of law."[2]
Others have described Menter's thesis as being the most comprehensive discourse on the subject of space law up to that time. (See appendix D for a more extensive listing of other conclusions and recommendations from Colonel Menter's thesis.) The passage of time has validated many of Menter's conclusions.
By the summer of 1959, according to an October 1959 RAND report, there was general agreement in the United States regarding three precepts for outer space law. Leon Lipson, author of the RAND report, noted that although the three might be viewed by some as being "negative," these precepts "clarified basic questions of space law" and were therefore "useful achievements." The three principles were
- An explicit, comprehensive agreement on a detailed code of law for outer space would be premature at this time.
- The question of the legal status of outer space is not significant now.
- The definition, in terms of altitude, of the boundary between airspace and outer space is at best a low-priority question.[3]
- ↑ Col Martin Menter, "Astronautical Law" (thesis, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., May 1959), 68-69.
- ↑ Maj Gert Robert W. Manss, "Judge Advocates and the Law of Outer Space," JAG Law Review, Special International Law Issue: Symposium on the Law of Outer Space, 7, no. 5 (September-October 1965): 3.
- ↑ Leon Lipson, discussion leader, Chapter III, "Some Problems of the Near Future and Possible Approaches," 5 May 1960, 79, quoted in Joseph M. Goldsen, "International Political Implications of Activities in Outer Space: A Report of a Conference, October 22-23, 1959," R-362-RC (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND), 79.
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