1020 Waller A. McDougall 



Polaris submarines) that created a real missile gap in the Soviet Union and, 

 hence, the effort to recoup through placing medium-range missiles in Cuba. 

 Following the October 1962 Cuban crisis, the two superpowers moved quickly to 

 a Partial Test Ban Treaty, after which the Arms Control and Disarmament 

 Agency revived hopes for a freeze on missile technology before antiballistic 

 missiles, multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), increased 

 accuracy, and other "improvements" destabilized the balance of terror. NASA 

 reported with alarm that fully eleven of fourteen anticipated missile improve- 

 ments the arms controllers hoped to ban were important or vital to the 

 exploration and use of outer space. Control of weapons research (as opposed to 

 deployment) would have strangled space programs in their cradles!"'* 



The problem of technological change for arms control is not merely one of 

 preventing the military application of new technologies; rather, it often lies in 

 the fact that operational systems for civilian and military use are virtually 

 identical. Nevertheless, there was great hope in the early years of space 

 technology that international agreements might preempt militarization of space 

 and otherwise establish international law for behavior in space. The arcane field 

 of space law 'burgeoned to promote and interpret a number of limited agree- 

 ments of space diplomacy (United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967, 

 conventions on spacecraft registration, liability, astronaut rescue, communica- 

 tions satellites and radio frequencies, and pending treaties on direct broadcast 

 satellites, remote sensing of the earth, and the exploitation of the moon).^' The 

 two early schools of space law, the natural and the positivist, debated the wisdom 

 of establishing codes of behavior a priori for activities in space, as opposed to 

 letting space law, like common law on earth, evolve according to patterns of use 

 and interest.'^ The debate hardly seemed an idle one as scholars and statesmen 

 groped for ways to avoid a repetition of the failure to regulate the use of atomic 

 energy after 1945. But technological revolution, as opposed to technology per 

 se, renders law and regulation continually obsolete. International legal commit- 



" This suggestion is derived from research in NASA, ACDA, and other materials. Heretofore, space arms 

 control has consisted of the restrictions in the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty, and 

 the ABM (SALT- 1) Treaty. Signatories have agreed to prohibit nuclear explosions or deployment of weapons 

 of mass destruction in outer space and any interference with each other's "national means of verification " (spy 

 satellites). See Schauer, The Politics of Space, chap. 9; Dupas, Lutte poiir I'espace, chap. 6; Alton Frye, Space Arms 

 Control: Trends, Concepts. Prospects, Rand P-2873 (1964); and Walter C. Clemens, Outer Space and Arms Control 

 (Cambridge, Mass., 1966). 



For useful guides to the literature, see Irvin L. White, Imw and Politics in Outer Space: A Bibliography (Tucson, 

 1972); and Kuo Lee Li, WorWW!<i<'S/w<-f/^urBiWw(i>Ta/>A-y (Toronto. 197S). Ahoiee the Yearbooks of the InstituU of 

 Air and Space Law. McGill University; and United Slates Senate, Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, 

 Space Law: Selected Basic Documents (Washington, 1976). 



^* Early classics on space law include the "positivist" Myres S. McDougal's Law and Publu Order in Space (New 

 Haven, 1963) and the "naturalist" Andrew J. Haley's Space Law and Government (New York. 1963). Another 

 seminal work surveys historical examples of international and nonterritorial legal regimes; see Philip C. Jessup 

 and Howard J. TaubenMd. Controls for Outer Space and the Antarctic Analogy (New York, 1959). Other leading 

 expositions of theory for space law include John Cobb Cooper, Exploratiom m Aerospace Law (Montreal, 1968); 

 Stephen Gorove, Studies m Space Law: lb Challenges and Prospects (The Hague, 1 977); and C. Wilfred Jenks, Space 

 Law (New \'ork, 1965) For an Indian view that cites Third World perspectives, see S. Bhatt, Legal Controls for 

 Outer Space: Law. Freedom, and Responsibility (New Delhi, 1973). On Soviet policy and jurisprudence for space, see 

 A. S. Piradov, International Space Law (Santa Barbara, 1974); and E. G. Vasilevskaya. Legal Problems of the 

 CoTUfuest of the Moon and Planets (Santa Barbara, 1974). 



