Vladimír Mandl

Vladimír Mandl (20 March 1899 – 8 January 1941) was a Czechoslovak lawyer and university lecturer. He published works on a variety of topics in Czech, German, French and English, focusing especially on private and transportation law issues.

Mandl authored the first stand-alone treatise on space law in 1932. For this publication – which preceded the launch of Sputnik 1 by 25 years – he is considered by some to be the "father of space law". Provided by Wikipedia