Page 120 - 100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International_V-Petrovsky_private special edition

100 Reflections that Crafted Geneva International

Peaceful Uses of Outer Space was set up by the United Nations General
Assembly in 1959. The desire of the international community to prevent an
arms race in outer space was expressed in the 1978 Final Document of the First
Special Session of Disarmament which stated that in order to achieve that
objective, further measures should be taken and appropriate negotiations held
in accordance with the spirit of the 1967 outer Space Treaty. In 1981 this item
was included for the first time in the agenda of the 36th session of the General
Assembly. А resolution adopted that year requested the then Committee on
Disarmament to start negotiations on the text of а treaty submitted by the
USSR on the prohibition of the stationing of weapons of any kind in outer
space. The Assembly also requested the Committee to give priority attention
to the negotiation of an effective and verifiable agreement aimed at preventing
an arms race in outer space and to the negotiation of an effective and verifiable
agreement prohibiting anti-satellite systems.

Since 1982, the item on the prevention of an arms race in outer space has
been on the agenda of the Conference on Disarmament. The non-aligned
Group, the then socialist States and China have repeatedly called for initiating
negotiations, in а subsidiary body, with а view to concluding an agreement for
the prevention of an arms race in outer space, including the questions of space-
based weapons and anti-satellite systems.

The Conference on Disarmament has been pursuing the issue over the
years without а negotiating mandate. The Committee has accumulated an
impressive number of proposals and ideas aimed at filling in the gaps in the
existing legal regime. In the last few years the Committee's attention was
concentrated mainly on the elaboration of confidence-building measures
(CBMs) and transparency in space activities. In the view of many delegations,
the area of CBMs represents one of the cornerstones of space stability and
security. These proposals formed the basis of а Report of the Secretary-General
on CBMs. The proposals generally fall into а number of categories, including
(а) those intended to increase the transparency of space operations generally;
(b) those intended specifically to increase the range of information concerning
satellites in orbit; (с) those that would establish rules of behaviour governing
space operations; and (d) those that pertain to the international transfer of
rocket technology.
Many delegations view the elaboration of CBMs and the drafting of an
agreement on this issue as an important intermediate step on the way to а
global prohibition of the militarization of outer space. The deliberations of
1993 were productive in this respect, and there was an impression that the
Committee was ready to change its mandate to а negotiating one specifically to

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