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PROFESSOR VLADIMÍR KOPAL PASSED AWAY
PROFESSOR VLADIMÍR KOPAL PASSED AWAY
Is it somehow symptomatic that the last significant research publication of
Vladimír Kopal was devoted to the heritage of one of the important “pioneers” of
the law of outer space, Vladimír Mandl (1899–1941). Professor Kopal wrote this
historical study, which was published in 2013 in Cologne as part of a collection of
essays on pioneers of space law, in the same way as all his other studies: with a most
profound interest in research, making use of all available sources and benefiting from
his impressive linguistic skills, applying high demands on the logic of his explanations
and on himself as an
author. And, it has to be stressed, with deep love of his country
projected into a wish to present this through his contribution about Mandl, an
outstanding and visionary representative of the inter-war Czechoslovak doctrine of
international law, to the international readership. However, Vladimír would only
have laughed about my introductory question: Anticipations did not belong to his
strictly Aristotelian, logical and ordered world, which refuses anything which was not
created either by nature or by human beings.
Vladimír Kopal was born on 14 August 1928. After having completed his studies
with distinction at the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague, he worked in
the period 1959– 1980 as executive secretary of the Commission for Astronautics
of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, which represented Czechoslovakia in
international organizations dealing with the
exploration and peaceful uses
of outer
space. In 1962 he attended
the founding session of the Legal Sub-Committee of the
UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (Copuos) as a delegate and later
participated in almost all its sessions, as well as at the sessions of the full Committee.
In the years 1999–2003 and 2008–2009 he was elected its Chairman. During his
time as director of the Department of International Law of the Institute of State and
Law of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, he served as Chief of the UN Outer
Space Division. He used all these experiences in the Czech Council for Astronautics
– an advisory organ of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture.
Meanwhile, he participated in all three UNISPACE conferences which – upon
invitation by
the Austrian Government - took place in Austria: UNISPACE (1968),
UNISPACE II (1982), UNISPACE III (1999), and later also in the five-year review
by the General Assembly of the Implementation of the Third Conference in 2004.
Professor Kopal received vast
recognition at home and abroad: He was awarded the
LifeTime Achievement Award of the International Institute of Space Law, recognition
from the International Astronautical Academy, a gold medal of the Czechoslovak
Academy of Sciences, and a gold medal of the Hermann Oberth Society. For many
years, he served as General Counsel of the International Astronautical Federation;
he had important functions in COSPAR, the European Centre for Space Law, the