Ken Murphy / 1:21 am January 21st, 2009

Pop, Virgiliu
“Who Owns the Moon? Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership”
Springer
2009
ISBN13: 978-1-402-09134-6
Publisher’s Web Site
Author’s Web Site
Out of the Cradle Review

Librarian’s Note: First met Virg at the Space Generation Forum, almost a decade ago at UNISPACE III. I was a U.S. delegate, he was a Romanian delegate. There were young delegates from all of the world and it was a terrific two weeks that I still remember vividly (especially the crush I had on Marlene).

Back to the law stuff, Virgil has significantly expanded the work done for his previous book, “Unreal Estate“. The only thing that still seems to be missing is a discussion of dispute resolution mechanisms. In my view ‘property rights’ are pointless if you don’t have a means of adjudicating disputes and then enforcing those judgments. When you do have such a mechanism for resolving disputes, the niceties of how the stuff gets divvied up amongst those who actually go out there and do stuff with it will sort itself out in the way that works best for space. … Hopefully.