Archive for category National Law
The Law of Post-Atmospheric Alien Encounters by National and International Organizations
Posted by admin in International Law, National Law on October 1, 2011
How would international law treat the hypothetical case of a national space shuttle mission encountering an alien race? To begin with, I should probably instead use the word “extraterrestrial” rather than “alien,” as alien is already a well established legal term of art. So this is not the law of foreigners in a state’s territory, but rather the law of contact with intelligent non-human entities that did not originate from earth.
What if First Contact happened tomorrow? How would humans react, and how would the law apply? Assuming the aliens didn’t immediately blast us out of existence, that is. I think it’s safe to say each state would want to have its own say in how things with the aliens go down, and that states would have their own individual opinions and conflicting agendas regarding the encounter. Which means, inevitably, they would each take whatever actions they deemed appropriate and then afterwords seek to justify those actions on the basis of contorted interpretations of international law. The United Nations would also want to establish a central role for itself in the fray, and because it does possess the institutional mechanisms that states tend to follow when seeking to take multinational action, the UN would likely emerge as the primary vehicle through which multilateral discussions and actions would take place.
So international law would be the natural language for states to use when framing these discussions. In this first installment, I am going to examine how international law in its current form would govern an encounter in outer space between extraterrestrials and a national or international body. Later articles will consider outer space encounters between aliens and private parties, and encounters with aliens on earth.
Space law, although relatively new and still developing, is an established body of law governing human activities beyond the atmosphere. Although the current body of space law lacks any provisions directly regulating potential alien contacts, the laws contained within the various space treaties would by their language pertain to such an encounter. Read the rest of this entry »
A National Sunday Law Will Be Enacted But The Mark Of The Beast Will Be a Different ‘Kettle of Fish’
Posted by admin in National Law on October 1, 2011
I was challenged by an Adventist brother over a previous article where I have expressed the view that the National Sunday Law does not constitute the mark of the beast. I was expecting a response like this because I know that this is not the orthodox view of the Sabbath-keeping community in general and the Seventh-day Adventist in particular.
The general view is that the National Sunday Law will become the mark of the beast, but is not the mark of the beast today. Their arguments stems from the idea that the beast of Revelation 13 is a symbol of the papacy, and because the papacy declared Sunday to be the mark of their ecclesiastical authority, they conclude Sunday observance to be the mark of the beast.
When I was first introduced to this view, it sounds valid. The reason why I accepted it to some degree was because of the glaring evidence (both historically and at the present) of a conspiracy to exalt Sunday keeping at the expense of the Sabbath. Statements and declarations like the one I referred to above was enough for me to at least conclude that where the National Sunday Law is concerned, the way is being paved for future developments.
We need to give the SDA’s some credit for their thoughtful analysis of Bible prophecy to be able to arrive at a conclusion like this where there is not a precise mention of any such thing as a Sunday legislation in the Bible. I believe that certain conclusions can be arrived at by deductive reasoning. This is what the SDA did why they are now predicting such an event. Read the rest of this entry »