Preempting War in the Heavens.

• Author: Elatawy, Hatem
• Position: Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space

Not that long ago, the latest anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) tests were front and center of debates among the disarmament community. The specter of turning outer space into a battlefield and making it unusable for humankind was emphasized. Despite not being a new phenomenon, somehow the latest ASAT testing has been perceived as crossing an outer space Rubicon. This reflects the failure of disarmament fora to deal with the issue of Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) despite the many attempts by states, including the leadership of Egypt and Sri Lanka, to avert an arms race in outer space before it actually began.

Building a regime to prevent certain arm systems is much easier before its full development and deployment. Indeed, the most successful prohibition regimes are associated with the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects wherein such weapons systems like blinding lasers have been stopped from entering national arsenals before their full development and deployment. In the case of outer space, Egypt and Sri Lanka have consistently pressed in the United Nations General Assembly and Conference on Disarmament for the necessity to negotiate a legally binding treaty on PAROS. This treaty would prevent deployment of weapons in outer space as well as ASAT testing. Despite the overwhelming voting in favor of the resolution in the General Assembly, agreeing on a negotiating mandate was thwarted by a barrage of obstruction and delaying tactics. Instead, many attempted to divert attention exclusively on a different, some would argue wrong, issue.

For the last ten years, discussions of space in multilateral fora have concentrated mainly on one issue: space debris. This issue is very important as the available sphere of usable space is finite--both Low Earth Orbit and Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit--and space debris poses the greatest threat of cluttering outer space. Worse, the possibility of an accident that destroys space assets, thus creating a cascade effect, is both real and omnipresent. Hollywood movies tackled the subject thus creating public awareness beyond the grey negotiation rooms for "space diplomats." However, as important as space debris is, it remains a byproduct of space activities, including ASAT testing, and consequently should be addressed in a wider framework. Furthermore, the specter of...