CYIL 2014

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

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