Proceedings of the Workshop - United Nations Office for Outer ...

2. Sales of the Celestial BodiesLately, sales of celestial bodies tend to attract media attention. As one of the most famouscompanies, which sells the land of celestial bodies, Lunar Embassy, established in 1980, gavemore than 300.000 people real estate certificates on the moon. 12 . While land on the moon wassold as early as 1955, the 1990’s witnessed many companies embarking on this new business.However, since no ownership can be achieved without physical possession, it follows that suchcompanies sell what they do not possess. Thus, unless Lunar Deeds are regarded as novelty giftsonly, their business would amount to fraud, which could be punished by authorities withoutbrandishing Article II of the OST 13 .Today, the problem, if it exists at all, is still rather small. When three Yemenis filed alawsuit against NASA demanding the suspension of the Mars program in 1997 on the groundsthat Yemeni myth tells that Mars belongs to their ancestors, NASA, of course, did not take anylegal action. However, the news chief of NASA stated that he recognized that such an issue mightbe serious when people actually went to mars or the moon and found valuable resources 14 . Thus,before physical possession becomes possible, a regime on the property rights in outer space has tobe discussed at international fora.Conclusion: Towards Equitable Uses of Outer SpaceIf appropriation or ownership is not involved, exclusive rights to use what is rare andvaluable could cause bitter competition and resentment. Here, let us look at well-known cases inthe leading field of commercialization in outer space utilization.It has been long attempted to seek a better legal regime for the more equitable uses of outerspace, especially in the field of telecommunications. By amendment of the ITU Treaty in 1973, anew concept was introduced that the geostationary orbit was a “limited natural resource.”(Article33(2)) 15 . Such a concept was, at least in part, recognized by the World Administrative RadioConference (WARC) by 1988. WARC-1977 to WARC-1988 made it possible for at least oneGSO and frequencies (12 GHz) for the GSO to be distributed to all States for satellitebroadcasting 16 .GSO as a “limited natural resource” has brought a variety of challenges into existingsatellite telecommunication, among which cases of Tongan satellites and paper satellites attracteda lot of attention. The actions of Tonga in applying for many GSO slots from the ITU for leasingto US and Russian satellites for several million dollars per slot annually, has been criticized 17 .Paper satellites are also a thorny problem to be addressed at ITU-R 18 .12 Pop1, supra, note 7, p. 19813 See, ibid., pp.195-20314 Ibid., p.201.15 Currently it is found in Article 44 (2) of the Constitution on the International Telecommunication Union.2001 amendment of the ITU Constitution also included LEO as “limited natural resources.”16 In the sphere of telecommunication satellites, traditional first-come-first-serve rule has been largelymaintained.17 Francis Lyall, “The International Telecommunication Union: a World Communications Commission?”,Colloq. L. Outer S., vol. 37 (1994), p.43; Jannat C. Thompson, “Space for Rent: The TelecommunicationsUnion, Space Law, and Orbit/Spectrum Leasing?”, 62 J. Air L. & Commerce (1996), pp.27-31118 Eutelsat v. SES (1998) is one of the first and most famous of the cases.