Pioneers of Space Law

Book excerpt: International space law is less than 50 years old. Although the work on the codification of space law started in the late 1950s, the Outer Space Treaty was only adopted in January 1967. However, much earlier than that, even as early as 1932, the first ideas about legal rules for human activities in outer space were being considered. Very little is known about these early drafts and proposals, and the pioneering work of early scholars in the field remains relatively unknown. This volume seeks to redress this by analysing the biographies and contributions to international space law of eleven such early "pioneers”, whose ground-breaking and original work helped to develop the field in important ways. The collection starts in the 1930's with the Czech author Vladimir Mandl, and dwells at length on the 1950's, the early time of space flight. The section on each "pioneer" is written by different members of the International Institute of Space Law, making this a lively, fascinating and unique collection of essays, of interest to the whole community of space lawyers.