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"Preface" [2015] ELECD 245; in von der Dunk, Frans (ed), "Handbook of Space Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) xxiv

Book Title: Handbook of Space Law

Editor(s): von der Dunk, Frans

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000359

Section Title: Preface

Number of pages: 7

Extract:

Preface


ABOUT THIS BOOK
Before you lies the result of a multi-authored process, a Handbook of
Space Law, which is meant to provide fundamental guidance to all those
interested in studying, in a comprehensive yet still comprehensible
fashion, the legal aspects of mankind's main activities in outer space,
directed toward outer space or directly benefiting from outer space.
When I started writing this Preface, the combination of my manual
clumsiness and the computer's precocious urge to auto-correct first
resulted in the heading `prospect' ­ which in this case I'd actually like to
look upon as a Freudian slip of the pen. A Handbook of Space Law can
no longer just address the legal state of affairs `as is'; `space law' is a
body of law perhaps more than any other body of law moving (hopefully)
forward. Ongoing developments continuously seem to call for the adap-
tation or even dismissal of existing parts of space law and/or creating
novel parts altogether, and any Handbook worth its salt should not only
outline the lex lata but also the underlying structures and approaches
allowing for a true understanding of the lex ferenda, what it should
address and how it should address it.
Presuming a considerable knowledge and understanding of law, espe-
cially general public international law, the Handbook is first of all aimed
at graduate and post-graduate students at faculties and schools of law,
including doctoral, JSD and PhD students studying space law as a
comprehensive academic ...