ROOM
30
Space Security
There is also no effective regulatory means in
place to control the exponential increase in space
debris and no regulatory effort is underway to
facilitate debris removal
In other words, what is increasingly lacking is
a prudent, efficient and strong global governance
- including a robust space governance system. By
global space governance we mean a collection of
space-related international binding agreements
and non-binding guidelines (and codes of
conduct) as well as the concerned international
institutions. National legislation and institutions
concerned with space and related matters play a
crucial role in this governance process.
What we are witnessing is not only retraction
from the further development of highly needed
international rules to facilitate and regulate space
activities, but also the weakening or abandoning of
the international institutions that remained, until the
mid-1970s, the global centre for space diplomacy.
For space-related affairs, the most important
of such institutions is the UN (United Nations),
particularly its Committee on the Peaceful Uses
of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS).
When the Space Age began in 1957 at the height
of the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the US
strived to have détente in the new environment. They
agreed to dedicate outer space for peaceful purposes
and for the benefit of the whole of humanity, a
gesture welcomed by the international community.
The UN General Assembly, in its first
resolution on outer space, adopted on 13
December 1958, expressed the common aim to
use outer space only for peaceful purposes, to
avoid the extension of present national rivalries
into this new field, and to promote energetically
the fullest exploration and exploitation of outer
space for the benefit of humankind.
These principles were elaborated in succeeding
resolutions that became the bases of the five
UN core space treaties and several resolutions.
Collectively, they form the framework and the
primary system of global space governance. The
foundational agreement of the system is the 1967
Outer Space Treaty, which is the most adhered to
space treaty. More importantly, it contains several
principles that have become a part of customary
international law, thus apply to all nations,
whether or not they are parties to the Treaty.
The global space economy is currently valued
at US$320 billion annually and continues
to expand from traditional applications -
communications, broadcasting, weather
forecasting, navigation, medicine, security and
remote sensing - to embrace space tourism,
space mining, space-based solar power, and the
future settlement on the Moon and Mars.
Along with this, the number of space players
is fast increasing, traditional space agencies and
large corporations being boosted by a growing
number of entrepreneurial private space
companies. In stark contrast, the development
of a global space governance system is at a
standstill and existing measures are rapidly
becoming inefficient and unable to cope.
This is compounded by a newly emerging
inward-looking geopolitical situation, of which
the directions being taken in the US by President
Trump and by the United Kingdom over Brexit
might be cited as prime examples.
Consequently, significant areas of space
activity - space traffic management, orbital
PRINCIPLES AND RULES OBSERVED
IN THE CURRENT GLOBAL SPACE
GOVERNANCE SYSTEM
States are obliged to explore and use outer space
and celestial bodies for the benefit and in the
interests of all states, irrespective of their economic
and scientific development
States are free to explore and use outer space and
celestial bodies on the basis of equality
States and their private entities are prohibited
to appropriate, by any means, outer space and
celestial bodies
States are internationally responsible and could
be held liable for their national, public or private
space activities
States are prohibited from establishing military
bases, testing any type of weapons, and conducting
military manoeuvres on the Moon and celestial bodies
States are forbidden from placing in orbit around the
Earth nuclear weapons or any other kind of weapons
of mass destruction
States are to be guided by the principle of
cooperation and mutual assistance, and must
conduct all their space activities with due regard for
the corresponding interests of other States
States are entitled to exercise their inherent right of
self-defence in case of an armed attack.
More importantly, the existing global space
governance system has aimed to strike a fair balance
between the interests of all nations.
