The United Nations (UN) has released its policy brief, “For All Humanity —The Future of Outer Space Governance, released in May 2024.
Key highlights
- It recommends a new treaty for ensuring peace and security as well as preventing an arms race in outer space.
- It also recommended a combination of binding and non-binding norms to address emerging risks to outer space security, safety and sustainability.
- It takes stock of the ongoing changes in outer space and assesses how they impact present and future governance.
- The number of satellite launches has shot up exponentially in the past decade after it stayed consistent from 1957-2012. In 2013, there were 210 new launches, which increased to 600 in 2019 and 1,200 in 2020 and 2,470 in 2022.
- This increase is fuelled by the active participation of the private sector. Though the private sector is more active in the United States, China, India and Japan are catching up.
- Currently, there is no agreed international framework on space resource exploration, exploitation and utilisation, or a mechanism to support how it is implemented, the brief noted.
- Currently, space traffic is coordinated by national and regional entities. Each has its own standards, best practices, definitions, languages and modes of interoperability. A lack of coordination among the entities could impact countries with less space capacity.
Space treaties
- In 1959, the UN established the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to review and enable international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space.
- In 1963, countries agreed to prohibit testing nuclear weapons in outer space.
- In 1977, the prohibition of altering the space environment as a weapon was agreed upon.
