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Security in Space The Next Generation - UNIDIR

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unable to agree where to lay the legal border between airspace and outer<br />

space.<br />

COPUOS<br />

COPUOS was established <strong>in</strong> 1959 by the UN General Assembly with the<br />

wide mandate of review<strong>in</strong>g the scope of <strong>in</strong>ternational cooperation <strong>in</strong> the<br />

peaceful uses of outer space. COPUOS and its subcommittees work on the<br />

basis of consensus and make recommendations to the General Assembly<br />

for endors<strong>in</strong>g resolutions.<br />

With reference to space safety issues, <strong>in</strong> 1980 COPUOS established a<br />

Work<strong>in</strong>g Group on the Use of Nuclear Power Sources <strong>in</strong> Outer <strong>Space</strong> which<br />

took more than a decade to produce a set of guid<strong>in</strong>g pr<strong>in</strong>ciples, which<br />

were endorsed by the General Assembly <strong>in</strong> December 1992. Although the<br />

Work<strong>in</strong>g Group is still <strong>in</strong> place, noth<strong>in</strong>g more than the orig<strong>in</strong>al pr<strong>in</strong>ciples<br />

has been produced to date.<br />

Another safety-related area <strong>in</strong> which COPUOS operates is that of space<br />

debris mitigation. After publish<strong>in</strong>g its Technical Report on <strong>Space</strong> Debris<br />

<strong>in</strong> 1999, COPUOS mandated <strong>in</strong> 2001 the Inter-Agency <strong>Space</strong> Debris<br />

Coord<strong>in</strong>ation Committee (IADC) to develop guidel<strong>in</strong>es regard<strong>in</strong>g space<br />

debris mitigation techniques. Subsequently, the Scientifi c and Technical<br />

Subcommittee established the Work<strong>in</strong>g Group on <strong>Space</strong> Debris with<br />

the mission to develop a set of recommended pr<strong>in</strong>ciples based on the<br />

technical content of the IADC space debris mitigation guidel<strong>in</strong>es. A revised<br />

draft of these guidel<strong>in</strong>es was submitted by the Scientifi c and Technical<br />

Subcommittee of COPUOS dur<strong>in</strong>g its forty-third session <strong>in</strong> 2006 and was<br />

endorsed <strong>in</strong> 2007 by the General Assembly. <strong>The</strong> guidel<strong>in</strong>es are not legally<br />

b<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g under <strong>in</strong>ternational law and it is also recognized that exceptions to<br />

the implementation of <strong>in</strong>dividual guidel<strong>in</strong>es or elements may be justifi ed.<br />

<strong>The</strong> relative value of UN guidel<strong>in</strong>es was spectacularly underl<strong>in</strong>ed by the<br />

destruction of one satellite <strong>in</strong> 2007 and one <strong>in</strong> 2008, events which created<br />

a massive and hazardous amount of new orbital debris.<br />

THE NEW SPACE AGE<br />

<strong>The</strong> emerg<strong>in</strong>g trend for the twenty-fi rst century is that of a global space<br />

<strong>in</strong>dustry <strong>in</strong>volv<strong>in</strong>g, along with the traditional space powers, a multiplicity<br />

107

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