Articles by J P Anand

inventors. According to the ORTAG management, already about $ 30 million has been spent on the development of its launcher using a relatively small team of about 40 engineers. The ORTAG managers are confident that once their launcher is ready for orbital mission by 1981, ORTAG will offer launching services at half the existing costs of NASA launchers- One of the main obstacles in the way of ORTAG activities was the United Nations Treaty on outer space which forbids an individual or a private firm from undertaking the exploration and exploitation of circum-terrestrial space without the sponsorship of a sovereign government. With the striking of a deal with Zaire, ORTAG has been able to overcome this obstacle. Mobutu, whose dubious role in the Angolan liberation War is by now well known, Is expressed his exhileration over "the emerging Cape Canaveral of Africa'.

THE OCEANS The Law of the Sea Conference J P Anand THE First Law of the Sea Conference was convened in Geneva in 1958, which discussed mainly four conventions: territorial seas and contiguous zones; the high seas; the continental shelf; conservation. At the Second UN Conference on the Sea Law (Geneva, I960), an attempt was made to obtain an agreement on these matters but it did not succeed. However on December 31, 1968, the UN General Assembly endorsed the concept of sea outside national jurisdiction as "the common heritage of mankind". A treaty banning destructive weapons from oceanbed was negotiated at the UN on February 10, 1971.