Page:The Air Force Role In Developing International Outer Space Law (Terrill, 1999).djvu/89

 Chapter 6

The 1972 Liability for Damages Convention

As described earlier, the Air Force strongly advocated the ad hoc approach to the development of outer space law. Yet, even when practice or custom had developed to the point that some states pushed for codification of these customs into conventions, the Air Force resisted their passage. The one notable exception was the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (Rescue and Rerum of Astronauts Treaty). The Air Force was ardently against US approval of the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water. Likewise, but less vehemently, it opposed the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (Principles or Outer Space Treaty). The effectiveness of Air Force opposition to such treaties was muted or diminished by its generally reactive posture within the Defense Department in the early 1960s.

In his history of the Air Force JAG office from 1963 to 1965, Will Carroll examines the involvement of the Air Force's International Law Division in discussions regarding draft State Department position papers for the Principles, Liability, and Rescue and Return Treaties. Carroll's brief description of this review and coordination process essentially confirms the generally reactive posture of the Air Force from 1963 to 1965 to these developing international outer space conventions.

In July 1959 the United Nations' Committee on Peaceful Uses of Space (COPUOS) first recognized the need for a liability convention. By that date there had been 30 space launches. Pressure to resolve the liability issue increased as the number of launches rose. However, little progress was discernable until 1962, when the United States introduced before COPUOS the first formal "proposal," though not in the form of a draft treaty, to deal with the liability issue. By then, the US and USSR had launched or attempted to launch more than 150 space objects. In 1964 when the United States introduced the first actual treaty, the number of