Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Jan 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002iaf..confe.401j&link_type=abstract
IAF abstracts, 34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, The Second World Space Congress, held 10-19 October, 2002 in Houston, TX, USA.,
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
This paper will examine a current national initiative from the United States of America to achieve greater national security through the `weaponisation' of extra-atmospheric space. We will propose a synthesis of the current international legal framework pertaining to military activities in space. Based on the analysis of the legal regime and on some current national and regional political initiatives, we will make some practical recommendations to prevent an arms race in space. Civil remote sensing, telecommunications, and launchers launch vehicle technologies have all benefited from a military heritage. They are dual use technologies, in other words, technologies that have both military and civilian applications. In fact, space has always been militarised, ever since the first satellites were put in orbit for reconnaissance missions. But recently, some national policies and technological advances are making the militarisation of space less `discrete'. Military assets from different countries are already stationed in orbit (e.g. reconnaissance and navigation satellites), but they might soon be joined by new `space weapons' with lethal strike capabilities. Currently, in the United States, military and civilian space activities are being closely intertwined. A typical example is the call of the NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, a former Secretary of the Navy, for closer cooperation on research and development between NASA and the Department of Defense. Concerning plans to station weapons in space, the American Air Force Space Command issued, in February 2000, its `Strategic Master Plan for FY02 and Beyond'. It states that the United States "...future Air Force Space Command capabilities will enable a fully integrated Aerospace Force to rapidly engage military forces worldwide. [...] Full spectrum dominance in the space medium will be achieved through total space situational awareness, protection of friendly space assets, prevention of unauthorized use of those assets, negation of adversarial use of space and a fully-capable National Missile Defense (NMD). [American] ICBMs will continue to provide a credible strategic deterrence, while advanced, conventional weapons operating in or through space will provide our National Command Authorities (NCA) with formidable and flexible options for prompt, global, conventional strike." As we will see in this paper, the current international legal framework restricting the stationing and use of weapons in space is composed mainly of three treaties. They are: the Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (1972), called commonly the `ABM treaty', the `Outer Space Treaty' (1967) and the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water (1963). We will also see that - contrary to public opinion - those current legal instruments, even coupled with other international legal texts, do not prohibit the `weaponisation' of space. For instance, The Article Four of the Outer Space Treaty is often cited as the main legal argument against militarisation of space. This article does indeed prohibit the installation or stationing of "any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction", "in orbit around the Earth", "on celestial bodies", "in outer space" and "in any other manner". But, aside from the weapons identified (nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction), nothing prohibits a government signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, to actually station other types of weapons in space, such as laser-based systems. In this paper, the current situation of potential `weaponisation' of space, the international impacts of such a policy and the gaps of the international legal framework concerning the militarisation of space, will prompt some comments and practical recommendations.
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