The 1972 Liability Convention Sample Clauses

The 1972 Liability Convention. The foremost breakthrough in providing for a specific, workable mechanism for dispute settlement relating to space activities was achieved in the 1972 Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects.68 The Preamble of the Liability Convention recognizes: “the need to elaborate effective international rules and procedures concerning liability for damage caused by space objects and to en- sure, in particular, the prompt payment under the terms of this Convention to victims of such damage.”69 The negotiations leading up to the Liability Convention were difficult. The Legal Sub-Committee of UN COPUOS had to settle the very contentious mat- ter of jurisdiction for claims not settled by diplomatic negotiations. Some delegations presented proposals providing for compulsory jurisdiction. The Belgian and the U.S. delegations proposed drafts for compulsory arbitration.70 The Hungarian draft also provided for the establishment of an arbitral tribunal by agreement of the States concerned. Its competence, however, did not entail a settlement of the dispute by a decision which had the legal quality of a res judicata. The arbitral commission was conceived more to act as a conciliation committee.71 The Hungarian draft was supported by the delegations of the Soviet Union and the other Eastern European countries.72 Their shared position evidently seemed motivated by their common unwillingness to accept compulsory dispute settlement procedures. They did not plan to renounce their sovereign freedom of construing international law according to their own legal and political opin- ions. This led to the drafting of the dispute settlement mechanisms becoming one of the most complex parts of the preparatory work. Several delegations from Western countries expressed their deep regret that a solution could not even be arrived at a process that did not contain legally binding force, but which should only settle the dispute on a moral and political basis. These critical observations were made in somewhat harsh terms by the Belgian and French delegates during the session of the 1970 Legal Sub-Committee meeting. In June 1971 there was eventually a joint draft by the Belgian, Brazilian and Hungarian delegations. This included a compromise and became the present 68see supra note 22. In this section, all Articles, unless specified otherwise, refer to those in the Liability Convention. 69Paragraph 4, Preamble, Liability Convention, see supra note 22 70Article 3 of UN...