New Addition to the Star Trek Literature

Antonin I. Pribetic, Osgoode Hall Law School, has published "'To Boldly Go Where No One Has (Arbitrated) Before': The Star Trek Mythos as an Heuristic Paradigm for Jurisdictional and Arbitration Issues", a short paper on the ST:TNG episode "The Ensigns of Command" and the arbitration issues it raises. Here is the abstract.

While the topic of international arbitration has failed to capture the interest of Hollywood producers or television audiences, the science fiction genre yields a serendipitous result. Using an excerpt from a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, this brief comment analyzes the impact of law and popular culture on the issues of the rule of law, jurisdiction and international (more accurately, "intergalactic") comity within the context of bilateral and multilateral treaty obligations.

Download the entire paper here.

The piece adds to the developing Star Trek bibliography that includes pieces by Jeffrey Nesteruk, Franklin and Marshall College, "A New Narrative for Corporate Law," available from SSRN and the anthology Star Trek: Visions of Law and Justice (2005), which brings together several of the more famous essays, including Paul Joseph and Sharon Carton's "The Law of the Federation."