[FH] About the UN again (sorry Beast)

G'day guys,

During a rather, ahhh, dull meeting this afternoon the only highlight
was a 
talk about the potential strip mining of the deep seafloor (Australia's 
interest only being that it would be competition to our land based
mining). 
The interesting bit with regard to GZGverse being that as this is a UN 
governed area (under UNCLOS) the UN will get a percentage (or royalties
or 
something) of all the claims that go on down there. Now this lead me to 
thinking about the situation in space, a few people have suggested that
the 
UNSC is funded via royalties on activities in space (whether asteroids, 
other planets/moons etc). What the talk today indicated was that the 
precedent for this already exists. I know the counter argument of "all
have 
to ratify for it to have power" has been used against this idea in the 
past, but that too may be covered by this situation. For instance, the
US 
is not a signatory to UNCLOS, but it does abide by it anyway - at least 
within this mining stuff - as by doing so it ensures other nations who
have 
signed respect its claims.

Anyway just a thought.

Beth

------------------------------------------------------------------------
---- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Elizabeth Fulton
CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax 03 6232 5053 International +61 3 6232 5053