Forum Chair Co-Winner of Donner Prize

The winner of the 2023 Donner Prize was announced on May 8, 2024, by Gregory Belton, Chair of the Donner Canadian Foundation, during a gala dinner in Toronto.

Michael Byers and Aaron Boley were awarded the Donner Prize for Who Owns Outer Space? International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space, published by Cambridge University Press.

In Who Owns Outer Space, Byers and Boley, an international lawyer and an astrophysicist, identify and explore the challenges of humanity’s rapid expansion into Space. They propose actionable solutions and explain the essential aspects of Space science, international law, and global governance in a fully transdisciplinary and highly accessible way.

The Donner Prize Jury praised the book for “providing a grounding in a field of law and policy, which is essential to the age we live in. The topic is vital, the analysis is thorough, and the finer points of law are meticulously explained. There is a clarity and “down to earth” quality to the writing, which make this a very accessible book on an “out of this world” subject.”

Lauren Shea at GISS

At the end of February we brought Lauren Shea to talk to GISS students about her recent team row across the Atlantic ocean- also known as “The World’s Toughest Row.” By completing the 3000 mile row in only 38 days, Lauren and her 4 woman team (Salty Science) were able to raise more than $250,000 for marine conservation education.

Ocean Agreement

We are excited to see that Chile and Palau have become the first countries to ratify the “High Seas Treaty”. This treaty was put forward by our October 2023 guest Rashid Sumaila with the aim of keeping international waters fishing free zones which would help to stabilize fish stocks around the world, as well as promoting a sustainable fishery and boosting the health of the oceans.

Rashid Sumaila was the joint recipient of the 2023 Tyler prize for his work on this. He was informative, passionate and even optimistic when he was a guest of the Forum at ArtSpring. Our congratulations to him. We hope other countries now follow suit