By Wendy Stocker
Published in The Ploughshares Monitor Volume 44 Issue 2 Summer 2023
The most recent session of the United Nations (UN) Open-Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats (OEWG) was held in Geneva, Switzerland earlier this year. Ploughshares Senior Researcher Jessica West was present and has just published her report: The Open-Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats: Recap of the third session, January 30 to February 3, 2023.
This report organizes key insights and themes according to the topics provided in the timetable for the session and provides a list of recommendations as reflected in the discussion, grouped according to theme.
This latest report joins Jessica’s reports on the Ploughshares website for the first two OEWG sessions, along with other reports on outer space security.
Ploughshares and the OEWG process
Project Ploughshares is the peace research institute of the Canadian Council of Churches, which has consultative status with the United Nations. Ploughshares has been present at United Nations meetings related to outer space for many years, often one of only a few nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
This last OEWG session was attended by delegates from more than 42 UN member states (including Canada), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union, and the Holy See. Only four NGOs were represented. Two were international organizations; one of the remaining two was Secure World Foundation (see Jessica’s interview with Victoria Samson in this issue) and the other was Project Ploughshares.
Jessica has followed all sessions of the current OEWG. The current recap report is far from her only contribution to the most recent session. She also live-tweeted during all 10 meetings (as she had done for the two earlier sessions). Links for this coverage can be found in an appendix of the report.
As well, at an informal meeting designed to collect input from civil society, Jessica delivered a statement by Project Ploughshares that addressed “the contribution of norms, rules, and principles, including to the negotiation of legally binding instruments,” and directed OEWG participants to her recent research on “arms control lessons learned from other domains of military activities.” The relevant report, A Security Regime for Outer Space, can be found on the Ploughshares website.
After indicating several useful lessons that related directly to the discussions held during the official meetings, the statement concluded:
We know from other fields of arms control that success requires persistent dialogue and layers of approaches rooted in shared values and principles, mutual obligations and restraints, and the means and mechanisms to implement them. And so, to echo the words of the UN Secretary-General, at this forum we should dare to be bold and ambitious, not only to advance norms of responsible behaviour, but also to have a positive contribution to the discussion of legally binding instruments.
In this statement, Ploughshares both encouraged certain responses from member states and other relevant space actors, and offered practical information.
Ongoing work on outer space security
A synthesis of several years of work on outer space security, including this most recent report, was on display in a webinar entitled Between the lines: Peace, war, and arms control in outer space, which Jessica presented in late May to the members of the Space Law Council of Australia and New Zealand. She discussed the application of international law to outer space – “we have space lawyers because we have space law.” She examined the Outer Space Treaty and its silence on arms control. She explored the different ways in which countries view peace in space. And she talked about gaps in space governance. All her observations on outer space were grounded in her understanding and experience of the politics of Earth – which she had seen displayed in all its breadth at the OEWG.
In response to a question about the role of commercial actors in achieving arms control, Jessica admitted that it is hard to get this group of players to engage in the topic. Although everyone agrees that activities that produce debris – like anti-satellite testing – are bad, most don’t want to be part of the solution. Jessica compared outer space to Ontario’s Highway 401 and what it would be like if no one cleaned up after traffic collisions. She also recognized a growing problem as more commercial actors develop innovative tech with military uses.
In her final question to Victoria Samson, Jessica asks her to evaluate the effectiveness of civil society on the OEWG. Victoria replies that civil society is in a good position to influence the future.
We at Ploughshares agree! And so, even though making change is hard work, we will continue to work for a safer and more secure Earth – and outer space.
