Professor von der Dunk presents at PINC Zeist

Nebraska College of Law Author

05/16/2016 Added

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Professor Frans von der Dunk discusses space law at PINC Zeist

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[00:00:00.124](speaking foreign language)
[00:00:06.985]He's a professor in Space Law at the University of Nebraska.
[00:00:11.507]And he's always teaching in English there.
[00:00:14.801]He just wrote a book about soccer, that's interesting.
[00:00:17.201]Explaining why the Dutch, so far, never won the World Cup.
[00:00:21.466]However, that's not the subject
[00:00:23.010]of his talk today, unfortunately.
[00:00:24.636]You can talk about that with him during the break.
[00:00:28.140]He's also an IX fan, so be careful.
[00:00:30.780]He will today talk about the fact
[00:00:32.529]that space belongs to nobody.
[00:00:35.442]But that we need to have rules
[00:00:36.641]between different countries about it.
[00:00:39.018]Maybe he will also explain why his consultancy
[00:00:42.241]is named Black Holes and how Pink Floyd inspires him.
[00:00:45.892]Whatever he does, in about 20 minutes from now
[00:00:48.492]you'll be enriched with his story
[00:00:50.351]and know a lot more about Space Law.
[00:00:53.015]A warm hand for Frans von der Dunk.
[00:00:54.993](applause)
[00:01:03.193]Thank you very much.
[00:01:05.253]If you ask a Law professor to talk about all those things
[00:01:07.790]that you asked I will stand here for an hour
[00:01:10.100]so I'm afraid I have to skip some things.
[00:01:13.582]Who owns the Moon?
[00:01:14.790]That is essentially the question that I often get
[00:01:17.233]when, at a reception or a party,
[00:01:19.553]I explain that I make my living
[00:01:21.582]with something called Space Law.
[00:01:24.997]What the heck is Space Law, right?
[00:01:27.419]So, I'm happy to confirm after an interview last November
[00:01:31.739]with the Huffington Post that I do exist,
[00:01:35.179]Space Law is not a feature of the imagination.
[00:01:38.077]And actually we did talk about
[00:01:39.579]something called cosmic mining
[00:01:41.484]which is the subject of my talk today.
[00:01:44.586]Now what is that about?
[00:01:46.215]First of all, think about Helium 3 on the Moon.
[00:01:49.666]And, again, this is not a figment of my imagination
[00:01:52.853]so I'm gonna show you a brief clip
[00:01:54.450]from a Dutch TV documentary of 2 1/2 years ago
[00:01:57.954]which explains a little bit more
[00:01:59.604]of what could happen out there.
[00:02:02.375]If we had gold bricks
[00:02:04.095]stacked up on the surface of the Moon
[00:02:05.887]we couldn't afford to bring them back.
[00:02:07.665]This material, at several billion dollars a ton,
[00:02:11.435]is what makes it all worthwhile.
[00:02:13.325]There is nothing that we know of
[00:02:15.743]in the solar system that is worthwhile
[00:02:18.385]going out to get to bring back
[00:02:19.782]to the earth other than Helium 3.
[00:02:23.332]Helium 3 could become
[00:02:24.824]the new fuel of the 21st century.
[00:02:28.062]A source of fusion power that could provide
[00:02:30.573]an almost inexhaustible supply
[00:02:32.231]of clean, pollution free energy.
[00:02:35.773]It would, over the long haul,
[00:02:37.802]replace for electrical power production
[00:02:40.693]not only fossil fuels but would replace nuclear power
[00:02:44.991]as we know understand it, fission power.
[00:02:48.370]If these men are right,
[00:02:49.542]whoever controls the Moon might just control
[00:02:52.532]the world's energy supplies for hundreds of years to come.
[00:02:58.812]Now the question is of course how serious is this?
[00:03:01.664]I don't know the real answer to that
[00:03:03.583]because I'm not a scientist.
[00:03:05.474]I only know that the second man interviewed
[00:03:07.964]in the previous clip was this guy, Harrison Schmitt.
[00:03:12.029]An astronaut, the only scientist
[00:03:15.043]ever to set foot on the Moon.
[00:03:17.038]And in the last Apollo mission,
[00:03:18.573]more than 40 years ago he came back convinced
[00:03:22.002]that the Helium 3 was the future
[00:03:24.302]of mankind in terms of energy supply.
[00:03:27.482]Now, he didn't get much track record, (stutters).
[00:03:32.983]Everybody listened to him politely
[00:03:34.629]because if it's an astronaut
[00:03:35.973]and an astronaut walks into the room you listen.
[00:03:38.453]However, as soon as he left, people shook their heads
[00:03:40.893]and said, "We're not sure that's gonna happen."
[00:03:44.108]So I'm still not sure whether this is actually gonna happen
[00:03:46.742]but we're going to come back to that.
[00:03:48.454]But then fast forward, we now have two US companies
[00:03:53.142]called Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries
[00:03:56.757]which have serious projects.
[00:03:59.043]They don't aim for the Moon, they aim for asteroids.
[00:04:03.112]Platinum, nickel, iron, and water
[00:04:05.701]which is probably the most valuable
[00:04:07.680]natural resource you can find in outer space.
[00:04:10.491]And, again, to prove that I'm not
[00:04:12.270]making this up just to keep my job,
[00:04:14.699]here is a clip from another TV documentary
[00:04:18.169]of the Netherlands like half a year ago.
[00:04:22.059]What will tomorrow look like?
[00:04:24.617]Our world is at it's limits.
[00:04:26.946]And yet, we all want more. And why not?
[00:04:31.558]Why shouldn't the future be brighter than today?
[00:04:34.227]But where will it come from? Simple.
[00:04:39.730]Our tiny planet sits in a vast sea of resources.
[00:04:43.961]Including millions of asteroids
[00:04:46.109]bathed in the Sun's free energy 24 hours a day.
[00:04:50.317]The same rocks that could fall from our skies
[00:04:52.418]also contain everything we could ever need.
[00:04:56.097]Both out there, and down here.
[00:04:59.261]It's time someone seized the opportunity.
[00:05:03.200]This is a clip from one of those
[00:05:05.000]two companies so it's an advertisement,
[00:05:07.000]i.e., you shouldn't believe everything it says.
[00:05:09.280]So we still need to put the question that
[00:05:12.158]"Is this all gonna be commercially viable?"
[00:05:15.605]We're talking about huge sums of money of going there,
[00:05:18.266]just getting something into outer space,
[00:05:20.405]getting one kilogram into outer space costs 20,000 Euros
[00:05:24.146]more or less so before you bring anything back valuable
[00:05:27.144]that investment, you need something.
[00:05:31.153]I can't judge that question.
[00:05:32.994]The company says, "Yes, it is worthwhile."
[00:05:36.016]Some of them actually say that they're already making money.
[00:05:38.674]So I'm going to focus more on the next question as a lawyer.
[00:05:42.096]"Is this all allowed?"
[00:05:44.927]Now, to look for the answer to that
[00:05:46.791]we first have to go back to the 60s
[00:05:49.255]when a treaty called the Outer Space Treaty was established,
[00:05:54.004]to which the United States and the Soviet Union,
[00:05:56.807]at the time, and France, and the United Kingdom,
[00:06:00.033]and China, and all the other countries
[00:06:01.622]of the world became parties.
[00:06:03.101]So this basically gives you
[00:06:03.977]the legal framework for outer space.
[00:06:05.986]And there's one article in there
[00:06:07.737]which is relevant to this issue.
[00:06:09.638]Article II provides that outer space, including the Moon
[00:06:12.497]and other celestial bodies which includes asteroids,
[00:06:15.636]are not subject to national appropriation
[00:06:18.749]by claim of sovereignty or by any other means.
[00:06:22.501]What does this mean?
[00:06:23.927]Well, you all probably recall from your history classes
[00:06:27.442]that centuries ago many Western European nations
[00:06:31.191]put their flag all over the world in parts of the world
[00:06:34.210]which they thought were pretty empty
[00:06:36.010]and they claimed it for the Motherland
[00:06:37.660]and they created a lot of colonies.
[00:06:40.079]You plant your flag somewhere, it's yours.
[00:06:43.176]Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is truly history
[00:06:45.679]because that is not what applies in outer space
[00:06:48.078]as a consequence of Article II
[00:06:50.101]that you cannot exercise sovereignty in outer space.
[00:06:53.768]So the fact that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
[00:06:55.928]planted the flag on the Moon,
[00:06:57.399]the US flag back in 1969 did not mean,
[00:07:00.501]and couldn't ever mean that the Moon
[00:07:01.989]became part of US territory.
[00:07:05.029]Their giant leap was on behalf of all mankind
[00:07:08.221]and not just for the United States.
[00:07:11.141]That's something important to register.
[00:07:12.869]The reason why there was US flag
[00:07:14.810]was to honor the US taxpayer who had, after all,
[00:07:18.039]footed the bill for this hugely expensive enterprise.
[00:07:23.322]So, what does that mean for legal mining
[00:07:25.541]if this is not the United States
[00:07:26.853]or the Netherlands or any other country's territory?
[00:07:29.989]Well, I showed you this one provision
[00:07:33.768]of the Outer Space Treaty which is relevant,
[00:07:35.633]which basically says there's no sovereignty.
[00:07:37.764]Now the Outer Space Treaty didn't go further than that
[00:07:40.417]because in 1967 nobody considered
[00:07:42.966]the possibility of actual commercial mining.
[00:07:46.555]So this gives us the possibility
[00:07:49.245]to interpret this clause in varied means.
[00:07:51.836]There are basically two, I would say two
[00:07:53.916]fundamental possibilities to interpret it.
[00:07:56.505]One is that you say, "Well, if outer space belongs
[00:07:58.505]"to all of mankind, everything in it,
[00:08:01.096]"all the resources, also belong to everyone."
[00:08:04.344]Which means that before you can go
[00:08:05.983]and harvest those you need a kind
[00:08:07.974]of an international licensing regime.
[00:08:10.265]You need a kind of an international body to regulate,
[00:08:13.806]you cannot have one country or the other,
[00:08:15.915]on its own, allow for the exploitation of those resources.
[00:08:20.745]This is something similar to what is currently going on
[00:08:23.751]in satellite communications.
[00:08:25.229]If you want to operate a satellite system
[00:08:27.747]for commercial telecommunication purposes
[00:08:29.837]or for broadcasting, you basically need
[00:08:32.750]the consent of the International Telecommunication Union,
[00:08:36.023]a UN specialized organization,
[00:08:38.456]to use certain frequencies, to use certain orbits.
[00:08:42.105]So there is in satellite communications
[00:08:43.918]this international regime which allows
[00:08:46.318]the commercial exploitation of
[00:08:48.377]the resource of outer space itself.
[00:08:52.246]However, there's also another interpretation
[00:08:54.553]and by way of disclosure, this is the one
[00:08:57.574]that I personally think is by far the better one.
[00:09:01.035]And that is to say, outer space is a kind
[00:09:03.084]of a global commons which means
[00:09:04.927]that everyone at every state can validly use those resources
[00:09:10.305]or allow its commercial companies to use them.
[00:09:12.665]So as long as you comply with
[00:09:14.891]whatever international rules there are,
[00:09:17.473]with whatever international treaties tell you to do,
[00:09:20.323]as long as you are compliant with that
[00:09:22.345]you're good to go and individual states
[00:09:24.803]can individually license that.
[00:09:26.985]That is comparable to fishing on the high seas, right?
[00:09:30.923]High seas you cannot plant a flag there,
[00:09:33.163]the United States cannot cordon off a particular part
[00:09:36.614]of the high seas and says, "Everybody else gets out.
[00:09:39.705]"I am the one who determines who can fish there."
[00:09:42.822]But once a US fisher boat, just like a Chinese
[00:09:45.563]or a Dutch fisher boat gets out there
[00:09:47.905]and once the fish is in the net, it's validly theirs.
[00:09:51.345]They can claim it, they can own it,
[00:09:53.494]they can sell it, they can make a living with it.
[00:09:55.699]And nobody else can pass by and said,
[00:09:57.420]"Give me half of that fish because that comes from
[00:10:00.380]"the high seas which belongs to all of mankind."
[00:10:04.113]But, of course, if you have two interpretations
[00:10:06.464]you still have a possible international problem.
[00:10:09.361]And when these two companies in the US
[00:10:12.610]came forward with quite serious plans
[00:10:14.563]over the last couple of years,
[00:10:15.742]they put a lot of pressure on the US government
[00:10:19.142]to take some unilateral action,
[00:10:20.803]to give them some clue of what
[00:10:22.243]the proper interpretation was.
[00:10:24.433]So back in last November, the US President signed into law
[00:10:29.460]a Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act
[00:10:32.561]which did a lot of things but amongst others, in Title IV,
[00:10:36.032]it dealt with space resource exploration and utilization.
[00:10:39.273]In other words, with cosmic mining.
[00:10:42.694]What does it do? Basically it does three things.
[00:10:45.814]First of all, it says we, as the United States,
[00:10:48.766]recognize the right of ownership of US companies
[00:10:52.762]who go out there, mine those resources.
[00:10:55.454]So we give them the opportunity
[00:10:57.006]to then make a buck in selling it to others.
[00:11:00.646]Once you mine them, you have those resources
[00:11:03.614]just like the fish in the high seas.
[00:11:06.625]Secondly, there's another clause in the Outer Space Treaty
[00:11:10.726]which requires states to license,
[00:11:13.257]to authorize and supervise, these operations,
[00:11:16.067]these private operations.
[00:11:17.649]That is what the US has also committed to do
[00:11:20.534]by way of the Act.
[00:11:22.742]Now it will be a few years before these companies
[00:11:25.379]will actually start sending reconnoitering
[00:11:28.510]missions into outer space so they
[00:11:30.116]have a few years to develop the regime,
[00:11:32.214]but they're certainly going to do that.
[00:11:33.944]And, as a matter of fact, within a month from now
[00:11:36.305]the US President should be given a report
[00:11:38.545]on which US Agency should take care of that.
[00:11:42.753]And, by the way, the United States is by far
[00:11:44.473]the most advanced in this as you can imagine.
[00:11:46.625]This is the first national Act
[00:11:48.500]which addresses specifically something like cosmic mining.
[00:11:52.292]Now the third thing for us is probably
[00:11:53.989]the most interesting part because
[00:11:55.871]the Act also calls upon the US President
[00:11:58.825]to make sure that the interests of these US companies
[00:12:01.932]are protected in a global context.
[00:12:04.641]We are speaking about a global context,
[00:12:06.742]we are speaking about a global commons,
[00:12:08.502]we are talking about a global market for those resources.
[00:12:12.008]So you don't just want those companies
[00:12:14.684]to be protected in the US.
[00:12:16.657]And, of course, whatever international regime should arise
[00:12:19.929]it should preferably be along the lines of the US regime.
[00:12:23.738]It should allow commercial harvesting of those resources
[00:12:27.339]subject to a general licensing regime
[00:12:29.838]but not imposing any unfair obligations.
[00:12:34.030]Now that gives, of course...
[00:12:36.329]Maybe that needs a little bit of an explanation.
[00:12:38.337]Suppose that in indeed five or ten years from now
[00:12:41.608]one of those companies is able
[00:12:43.067]to bring back that stuff to earth.
[00:12:45.110]Platinum, for example, which is
[00:12:46.960]very rare on earth these days.
[00:12:49.148]If they bring it back in the United States,
[00:12:51.107]they're good to go because as we've just seen
[00:12:52.949]the United States has recognized those property rights.
[00:12:55.960]And they won't encounter any legal problem.
[00:12:59.910]However, everywhere else where it lands
[00:13:03.057]you're not sure what's gonna happen.
[00:13:04.531]Do these other countries recognize the same rights?
[00:13:06.939]Or do they say, "Well, this belongs to all of mankind
[00:13:09.200]"so you have to share it with everyone else."
[00:13:11.932]And it is one thing to bring it back
[00:13:13.551]to the United States safe and sound,
[00:13:15.991]but if you then want to sell it onwards,
[00:13:17.970]you still need to have those other countries
[00:13:21.097]accept the same regime as well.
[00:13:24.527]So that's why these international discussions are important.
[00:13:28.278]Now, I talked about platinum and bringing it back to earth.
[00:13:31.196]That's just one part of the plan
[00:13:32.878]the other part of the plan is to harvest
[00:13:35.039]those resources in outer space
[00:13:36.599]and reuse them in outer space.
[00:13:38.871]For example water, as I said, the most valuable resource
[00:13:42.959]in outer space can be used for human habitats
[00:13:45.978]on the Moon, on Mars.
[00:13:48.245]It can be used for Space Stations
[00:13:50.415]floating around in outer space.
[00:13:52.956]And it can also be used for rocket fuel.
[00:13:55.170]And you don't have to bring it
[00:13:56.137]back to earth first to produce the rocket fuel.
[00:13:58.468]So the idea is gigantic tank stations in outer space.
[00:14:02.127]But you essentially are confronted with the same
[00:14:05.005]conundrum as a private operator.
[00:14:07.388]If you wanna sell it because there's a Moon station
[00:14:10.367]or a space station out there,
[00:14:12.676]if it's a US station, again, no problem
[00:14:15.657]because the US has recognized your property rights.
[00:14:18.777]If it's another country, as of yet, there is no certainty.
[00:14:22.995]So that's why also the US is interested
[00:14:25.476]in an international regime.
[00:14:27.183]So let's have a look at those
[00:14:28.125]international discussions briefly.
[00:14:32.385]There are a couple of countries
[00:14:33.263]who've spoken out on this issue.
[00:14:35.095]On the one hand you have the country called Luxembourg
[00:14:37.996]which recently has declared that it will
[00:14:41.007]offer regulatory and financial incentives
[00:14:43.687]to space resource mining companies.
[00:14:45.972]In other words, they basically agreed
[00:14:47.903]to the US concept that you can unilaterally
[00:14:50.441]license those operations and grant them property rights.
[00:14:54.670]Not entirely accidentally I've been consulting
[00:14:57.110]with the Luxembourg government.
[00:15:00.162]A somewhat more unlikely country in there
[00:15:02.431]which is also pretty positive toward the US
[00:15:05.802]is the United Arab Emirates.
[00:15:08.162]Where they have recently announced
[00:15:09.770]the establishment of a national space law
[00:15:11.990]which should include commercial mining
[00:15:15.288]as one of the commercial activities to be covered.
[00:15:18.848]Not entirely accidentally I have been consulting
[00:15:21.031]with the United Arab Emirates, as well.
[00:15:23.980]Not everyone is happy, of course.
[00:15:25.980]On the other side of the fence,
[00:15:27.058]for example, you find the Russians.
[00:15:29.960]Now I haven't heard any legal argument so far,
[00:15:34.229]that may still come.
[00:15:35.877]Not accidentally I have not been consulting
[00:15:38.078]with the Russians.
[00:15:39.868]Basically the Russians are simply angry.
[00:15:41.867](audience laughs)
[00:15:42.700]They don't like this, they see this as one of the
[00:15:45.505]classical US approach of going unilaterally,
[00:15:48.852]of dominating space.
[00:15:50.943]Sometimes it's almost cold war rhetoric
[00:15:52.903]which you say there but as I said,
[00:15:54.673]I haven't seen any legal argument as of yet.
[00:15:58.353]Another country which is not very happy
[00:16:00.372]with that is Brazil.
[00:16:02.957]Brazil is not angry, Brazil is disappointed.
[00:16:05.919](audience laughs)
[00:16:07.337]because they would much rather prefer
[00:16:09.169]to see an international discussion prior to any
[00:16:11.919]state unilaterally drafting a law.
[00:16:14.959]And to a certain extent they are right.
[00:16:17.471]As we've seen, even the United States companies
[00:16:19.739]have something to gain from an international regime
[00:16:22.840]because then they can access global markets.
[00:16:26.831]Little bit more of detail you may think,
[00:16:28.540]"Well, why is Luxembourg important?
[00:16:30.791]"It's a very small market."
[00:16:32.649]Well Luxembourg is, of course, part of the European Union.
[00:16:36.254]If you bring a particular commodity with validly
[00:16:39.844]within one European Union country
[00:16:41.895]you are entitled to sell it throughout the European Union.
[00:16:45.117]So Luxembourg is the gateway to the German,
[00:16:47.437]the British, and the French markets.
[00:16:49.344]Now unfortunately, that's not the whole story.
[00:16:52.027]There's a little bit of a snag in there
[00:16:53.496]because there are three member states of the European Union,
[00:16:55.856]Belgium, the Netherlands, and Austria,
[00:16:58.504]who have, apart from the Outer Space Treaty
[00:17:00.833]ratified another agreement in 1979 which says,
[00:17:04.748]and it's called the Moon Agreement
[00:17:06.057]but it also applies to asteroids,
[00:17:07.765]it basically requires those countries
[00:17:10.362]to allow these benefits to be shared with everyone else.
[00:17:15.147]So how that's gonna play out in the future
[00:17:17.557]when somebody's actually going to bring that stuff back
[00:17:20.459]and wants to sell it on the Dutch market I have no idea.
[00:17:25.018]A similar problem arises with regard to Australia
[00:17:27.665]which is also a party to the Moon Agreement.
[00:17:29.977]And Australia, as you may know,
[00:17:31.759]is about 90% desert so if you use that as a landing site
[00:17:36.256]for your robotic mission and you miss by 10 or 20 miles
[00:17:39.408]it's still not a big deal because
[00:17:40.867]you still won't hit anyone, right?
[00:17:43.477]Back in the 1990s there were actually a couple
[00:17:46.125]of US companies who were interested in Australia
[00:17:48.826]as a landing site for their missions.
[00:17:51.388]But then they found out that Australia
[00:17:53.096]was a party to the Moon Agreement and they backed off.
[00:17:56.272]So this is a big issue.
[00:17:58.603]The last flag I wanna show you here is that of China.
[00:18:02.404]Now you may think China, which you know
[00:18:04.936]from it's political perspective from it's gut feeling
[00:18:07.485]would likely side with the Russians, right?
[00:18:09.637]Anything to use as a criticism
[00:18:12.088]against the big bully United States.
[00:18:14.246]But I will bet you a few sweet dollars
[00:18:16.208]that the first man to set foot
[00:18:17.637]on the Moon from now will be a Chinese.
[00:18:21.746]Which means that if the US will achieve
[00:18:25.325]in creating a global understanding that you can
[00:18:28.563]unilaterally mine the Moon or celestial bodies.
[00:18:32.008]Then five years or ten years from now
[00:18:33.814]when the Chinese start doing that on the Moon
[00:18:36.133]the Americans cannot complain, of course.
[00:18:38.592]So they are sitting on the fence
[00:18:39.952]and they're gonna see what's happening.
[00:18:42.762]There's one final snag to this story
[00:18:44.428]and this is about the man who sold the Moon.
[00:18:46.807]Dennis Hope was an American citizen,
[00:18:49.196]or is an American citizen,
[00:18:50.548]who back in 1980 registered his claim to the Moon
[00:18:55.415]with the Californian authorities.
[00:18:57.516]How he did it, I have no clue.
[00:18:59.125]He claims on his website that it took him a day
[00:19:01.028]to convince them to accept his claim as valid,
[00:19:03.836]but he succeeded and he started selling it.
[00:19:07.497]And actually became a multi-millionaire.
[00:19:10.258]And believe me, I'm not making this up.
[00:19:12.946](phone rings)
[00:19:16.865]Good afternoon, Lunar Embassy
[00:19:17.698]and Galactic Government Headquarters, may I help you?
[00:19:20.894]Yeah, we actually have been selling
[00:19:21.817]property on the Moon since 1980.
[00:19:25.195]Properties that we're currently offering for sale
[00:19:27.294]are the Moon of Earth, Mars, Venus, Io, and Mercury.
[00:19:32.433]We have sold just under 600 million acres
[00:19:34.846]on the Moon so far and that's growing
[00:19:37.005]by about 200 properties per day.
[00:19:39.278]All of the red areas here are areas that we've already sold.
[00:19:41.889]The Staff would ask me, "We're out of properties,
[00:19:44.638]"we need to select another area, we just sold that one out.
[00:19:47.147]"Where do you wanna do it?"
[00:19:48.478]And so I just cover my eyes and go like this.
[00:19:52.006]There is just under 10 billion acres on the Moon.
[00:19:55.324]And everything you haven't sold
[00:19:56.157]belongs to you? Yes.
[00:19:58.000]So in 1999 a person by the name of Rigley Pop
[00:20:00.711]emailed me and told me that he had claimed ownership
[00:20:03.876]to the Sun and that he was charging me
[00:20:06.367]30 million dollars a year for the energy it put out
[00:20:08.876]for all planetary bodies that I owned.
[00:20:11.378]I waited a couple of days and wrote back to him
[00:20:13.096]and said, "We've decided we don't want your energy,
[00:20:15.167]please turn it off."
[00:20:16.738](audience laughs)
[00:20:20.538]Funny story, right?
[00:20:22.745]But there is a flip side to it.
[00:20:24.554]Before we come to that, I first want to reiterate
[00:20:26.858]that legally speaking, what this guy is doing
[00:20:28.551]is nonsense or fraud, it depends a little bit.
[00:20:31.381]Because the Moon is obviously not the United States
[00:20:33.882]and the fact that in the United States you can claim
[00:20:36.642]ownership over a wild piece of land by putting
[00:20:39.645]a virtual fence around it doesn't apply to the Moon.
[00:20:43.528]So you could shrug your shoulders
[00:20:46.189]and say, "Well, what the heck?"
[00:20:47.930]But this has international repercussions.
[00:20:49.941]When Dennis Hope became successful in the 1990s
[00:20:53.432]there was a German pensioner called Jurgens
[00:20:56.421]who recalled that he had inherited
[00:20:59.283]an old document from an ancestor
[00:21:02.053]who in the 18th century had done a great service
[00:21:04.551]to King Frederick the Great of Prussia.
[00:21:06.821]And as a thank you, the King in royal generosity
[00:21:11.550]gave him the Moon in ownership
[00:21:13.733]and now this German guy wanted the German government
[00:21:16.741]to take diplomatic action against the United States
[00:21:19.861]for allowing a US guy to sell his parts of the Moon.
[00:21:25.254]Again, the Germans of course didn't take this seriously.
[00:21:27.642]Neither did the Americans do so,
[00:21:29.462]but I got, in that timeframe, almost every other week,
[00:21:32.410]a phone call or an email from someone saying,
[00:21:34.940]"Well, I bought this part of the Moon."
[00:21:36.679]or "I'm gonna buy it, should I do it?
[00:21:38.559]"Is that fraud? Is that valid?"
[00:21:40.231]I was always tempted to say, "Well, you can buy
[00:21:41.850]"the same part from me for half the price."
[00:21:44.110](audience laughs)
[00:21:44.943]but of course as a law professor
[00:21:46.154]that's not something you're allowed to do, right?
[00:21:48.194]So it does give rise to problems
[00:21:50.434]because suppose that somebody brings back
[00:21:53.691]billions worth of platinum and someone else shows,
[00:21:57.081]"Hey, wait a minute! You took that from my back yard!"
[00:22:00.391]What the heck are the legal consequences of that?
[00:22:03.791]So, the billion dollar question
[00:22:05.311]I'm not gonna answer that for you
[00:22:06.772]otherwise I would probably not be standing here right now.
[00:22:10.005]The only thing I can say is that
[00:22:11.236]I have still a lot of work for me to do in the future.
[00:22:14.403]Thank you very much.
[00:22:15.711](applause)
[00:22:22.990]Thank you all folks.
[00:22:25.686](speaking foreign language)

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Professor von der Dunk presents at PINC Zeist

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