The United Nations Could Finally Create New Rules For Space (wired.com) 46
On Monday, A group of diplomats from the United Kingdom proposed that the United Nations set up a group to develop new norms of international behavior in space, with the aim of preventing the kinds of misunderstandings that could lead to war. Wired reports: As spacefaring nations advance their military satellite capabilities, including being able to disrupt or damage other satellites, such provocative behavior could escalate already-tense diplomatic situations -- and create more space debris in low earth orbit, a crucial region that's already chock-full of derelict spacecraft. This is the first significant progress in developing space rules in more than four decades. The most important piece of space law, the Outer Space Treaty, was negotiated by the fledgling space powers in 1967.
Monday's vote before the UN's First Committee, which is focused on international security and disarmament, passed overwhelmingly, with representatives of 163 countries voting yea versus eight nays and nine abstentions. Considering the widespread support for the proposal, including backing from the Biden administration, Edmondson expects it to pass in the full UN General Assembly next month. The proposal would create a new working group at the UN that will meet twice a year in Geneva in 2022 and 2023. By the end of that time, the group must reach consensus on new rules and identify areas in need of further investigation. Crafting norms for the kinds of activities that escalate tensions or generate debris will likely be top priority for this group, says Cassandra Steer, an expert on space law and space security at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Monday's vote before the UN's First Committee, which is focused on international security and disarmament, passed overwhelmingly, with representatives of 163 countries voting yea versus eight nays and nine abstentions. Considering the widespread support for the proposal, including backing from the Biden administration, Edmondson expects it to pass in the full UN General Assembly next month. The proposal would create a new working group at the UN that will meet twice a year in Geneva in 2022 and 2023. By the end of that time, the group must reach consensus on new rules and identify areas in need of further investigation. Crafting norms for the kinds of activities that escalate tensions or generate debris will likely be top priority for this group, says Cassandra Steer, an expert on space law and space security at the Australian National University in Canberra.
As if (Score:3, Insightful)
As if the UN has any credibility left.
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There is no such thing as an illegal war to remove dictatorship. It's like saying there is an illegal police raid to end a hostage situation.
There are many practicsl concerns about carrying it out. But no ethical ones.
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There is no such thing as an illegal war to remove dictatorship.
As long as the UN explicitly lacks any power to stop the US from doing whatever it wants, that's essentially true. But the US has been violating the international rules of war that it agreed to repeatedly, as well as our own rules on war (also repeatedly) so yes, you can have illegal war (and illegally undeclared war) but that doesn't mean that anything will be done about it. It's one thing for something to be obviously illegal, and another thing for a court to prosecute for it, and actual consequences are
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There is no such thing as an illegal war to remove dictatorship.
As long as the UN explicitly lacks any power to stop the US from doing whatever it wants, that's essentially true. But the US has been violating the international rules of war that it agreed to repeatedly, as well as our own rules on war (also repeatedly) so yes, you can have illegal war (and illegally undeclared war) but that doesn't mean that anything will be done about it. It's one thing for something to be obviously illegal, and another thing for a court to prosecute for it, and actual consequences are still a third thing. The first thing happens often, the second thing much less often, and the third thing happens only to losers of military conflicts if them.
There are many practicsl concerns about carrying it out. But no ethical ones.
Neither is the bar for illegality.
Whilst this is true, the rules on space are one of the few things that the US and former USSR could actually agree on and both follow.
With a lot of other nations such as the EU (France, Germany), the UK and Japan getting involved and co-operating as neither the US or Russia want to pay for the expense of their own dedicated space program any more, this has a good chance of working as the nations are becoming interdependent on each other.
That is until one nation gains a technological advantage and want
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Then why were you not cheering when Trump said he was going to pull us from the UN? It sounds like we serve no purpose
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Reform, don't destroy. The UNSC members should not have veto power. That's like if the US military could just decide not to do what they were ordered to do.
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There is no such thing as an illegal war to remove dictatorship. It's like saying there is an illegal police raid to end a hostage situation.
That's not actually how sovereignty works. The rules everyone has actually agreed to in the modern era basically boil down to that you can go to war to defend yourself from attack, but that you you need international agreement to go to war for purposes of regime change. Otherwise, any country can just use the excuse that they think the country they want to attack is a dictatorship and unilaterally make the choice to go to war. There are arguments to be made (sometimes pretty tortured ones) about pretty much
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The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. It's
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That's more or less realpolitik in a nutshell, sure. Inasmuch as there's actually something called "international law" built up out of treaties and agreements and conventions, one sovereign nation occupying another sovereign nation's territory is illegal except temporarily in a war. As far as war goes, under international law, starting a war with another sovereign nation for reasons other than self defense and without an international resolution to do so is illegal. That the de facto state of affairs is tha
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Your argument basically boils down to "I dont like what you are or do, so I am justified in ending you".
The danger with that argument is the other side can use it as well. The only reason it "works" for you at the moment is because you are stronger than most, but if someone even stronger than you comes along...
What if a strong country doesn't like how the US treats its minorities? Stance on abortion? Stance on homosexuality? Does that give them ample justification to end the US governments control?
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Well, it is a feature of the UN that it main job is to avoid wars between major powers, so any major power can veto anything. That makes it useless as an international court or government, but makes it better as anti-worldwar tool.
Finally (Score:2)
This is a long-overdue issue, especially with the rise of private/corporate spaceflight. The 1979 Moon Treaty would be a good starting point for these if it weren't so narrowly adopted and lacking in power. They sorely need to settle the status of extraterrestrial colonies, even before the fact, resource extraction, militarization of Earth orbit, space debris ownership and cleanup, and like a million other topics that threaten our current access to space.
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There needs to be a better system for resolving civilian disputes over space too. Boeing was just granted permission to put satellites up which SpaceX objected to on the grounds of interference, and SpaceX's own Starlink satellites have attracted a lot of objections too. And that's just in the US, other countries are launching their own constellations and at the moment there isn't a good system to handle conflicts.
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Re:Finally (Score:5, Informative)
That's actually a good parallel, with one key difference - and I'm saying this with the assumption that the 1969 Outer Space Treaty isn't fully repealed/reworked from scratch -: space and all objects therein is explicitly considered common domain of all mankind. Which makes things a little more challenging.
See, the designation carries with it a restriction that space and all its resources may only be utilized for the betterment of all mankind. And that's as far as the treaty goes, because there's no precedent yet, but here's the NATO stance - which I helped form a loong while back -: because this requirement exists for all of outer space, resources extracted from celestial objects are also subject to this restriction, which means they must be distributed equitably among nations of the world.
Of course, this is obviously stupid, because some nations will have the industrial capacity and technology to utilize, say, an influx of titanium, others won't but will still be allotted an amount because of the equitable distribution. And as you point out, there needs to be an economic return for resource extraction start in the first place, something that's obviously not permitted by the status of outer space as things currently stand.
Overall, here's the deal (which I would have put in my opening comment, but I was in a rush): a ground-up rework of the current space law system is required, one that fulfills a number of criteria:
The United Nations sure has its work cut out for it to craft a framework that will stand the test of time...
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Of course, this is obviously stupid, because some nations will have the industrial capacity and technology to utilize, say, an influx of titanium, others won't but will still be allotted an amount because of the equitable distribution.
It's also obviously stupid because this utopian method of economic management has never worked, anywhere.
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Give corporations and non-government entities a seat at the table
No.
because the assumption that only states have the power to achieve spaceflight no longer holds true
No, the assumption is that nations police what happens within their borders. The corporations can go through their host nations for approval, and they can incorporate in whichever nation they think will be the "best" host for their business model. Giving corporations a seat at the table is only going to lead to a post-government future, and if you think that's a great idea then pay attention. Governments do bad things all the time, but they do even worse things when run by corporations, and it's even wor
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No, the assumption is that nations police what happens within their borders.
No. When the original 1969 Outer Space Treaty was written, the underlying assumption was clearly that only states have the required industrial, economic, and scientific base to launch space missions. Corporations were added into the picture as an afterthought in the 1979 Moon Treaty, but due to other provisions clashing with the era's ideals, that was never widely adopted.
Now, the landscape has changed dramatically, with nation states retreating from space exploration and refocusing resources elsewhere, and
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There are roles other than partners or enemies.
Re: Finally (Score:2)
Of course, this is obviously stupid, because some nations will have the industrial capacity and technology to utilize, say, an influx of titanium
Why bother? The valuable thing about space resources is generally that they're already in space. Perhaps finished goods might be exported down the gravity well to Earth, but there's little reason to ship billets of titanium, to use your example, much less titanium ore.
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Yes, I agree. But I worry that it will be made like Antarctica - the province of scientists only, which will kill space exploration. Space exploration will only grow if there is economic opportunity. Unfortunately, that requires allowing some groups to become rich and powerful. There is no other way. I wish there were. But I agree 100% that there needs to be accountability and some rules.
Just declare that the first nation landing on any object owns that object. Can you imagine the incredible strategic advantage of owning the moon, planets or asteroids? Landing missions to claim dominion over minerals?
You'd probably see a new space race with people shooting at each other on the way to claim places.
At least that would keep it away from those damned scientists.
important "no" votes (Score:3)
Both Russia and China voted "no" on this. They wont support this, same as US ignored their attempts on resolution related to preventing an arms race in outer space. This will be basically western discussion club with no real influence (even more limited then UN influence usually goes).
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both of which have veto power, so the whole project is dead on arrival
US will decide the rules (Score:2)
Realistically, there is only one company that is precipitating these issues - SpaceX. They threaten to open up space access to anyone with a few hundred thousand dollars (maybe even less), and appear to be able to tilt the economics in favour of sending up these mega clusters. Nobody is going to be launching a starlink like constellation on the back of multi-million dollar disposable rockets.
Due to SpaceX being under the jurisdiction of the USA, you can bet that the USA is going to end up deciding the rules
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Not quite. Given how quickly the UN moves, I can see that the now-defunct Planetary Resources also factored into the process.
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When you wave down at nations with no space capability, their barking to be a player, at least in setting rules, seems ludicrous.
As with so much else the UN does, those nations targetted, the big boys, ignore or veto it.
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When you wave down at nations with no space capability, their barking to be a player, at least in setting rules, seems ludicrous.
I don't know about all that, but I do know the UN is broken by design when it gives veto power to the members of the UNSC. It means the whole point of the UN is to rubberstamp the actions of the superpowers.
C'mon, we all know how it's gonna end (Score:4, Funny)
Only Finland [youtube.com] will heed it.
Sometimes humanity sickens me (Score:1)
"...such provocative behavior could escalate already-tense diplomatic situations -- and create more space debris in low earth orbit, a crucial region that's already chock-full of derelict spacecraft."
Do humans go anywhere without leaving garbage as evidence of their visit?
The UN is already a joke. (Score:3)
The UN is already a bloated pile of shit masked as a political body.
Does anyone really expect them to make a difference ?
Love this:
"By the end of that time, the group must reach consensus on new rules and identify areas in need of further investigation."
IOW
We'll be in meetings for the next 10 years and won't have accomplished anything except wasting taxpayer money, and allowing our hand-picked (nepotistic) delegates live in luxury.
Oh, thank goodness (Score:2)
Rules or "Norms" (Score:2)
The summary goes back and forth on whether the UN will create "rules" or "norms".
In terms of international law, where do "norms" fit in?
If a situation is unprecedented, how do you determine what a "norm" for it would be?
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The summary goes back and forth on whether the UN will create "rules" or "norms".
In terms of international law, where do "norms" fit in?
If a situation is unprecedented, how do you determine what a "norm" for it would be?
You gather the relevant parties and have them negotiate and develop the 'norms'. Same as they do for the 'rules'.
No walking around in space in your underwear... (Score:2)
They need to make an academe (Score:2)
Rules Minus Consequence (Score:2)
ignorance (Score:3)
Just because YOU live in a nation that doesn't require massive external help doesn't mean that the UN does nothing because it's not helping feed, inoculate, and educate you. Perhaps if some of that money was put into advertising how great they are like all the private corps do, you'd be praising them like a Musk fanboy...
You can't get more diverse than the UN and getting agreement is as hard as it can possibly be. The potential power and threat of a world government power is a big reason to keep the UN org
international Maritime law? (Score:1)
For sure... (Score:2)
It's all a moot point (Score:2)
The Borg will have the final word.
Misunderstanding from the headline (Score:2)
They're being asked to create new NORMS.
The headline says RULES.
Those are two entirely different things that occasionally overlap.
Norms are sets of behaviors that people can expect and plan around. Since the development of space is as balkanized as nation states on Earth, the idea that there can be some commonalities - the sizes of docking rings, protocols for SOS signals, etc - is a good idea. These things can make daily operations much more successful and routine.
Rules are sets of behaviors that are exp