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Without rules, there are no rule breakers. Norms establish standards, set expectations and clarify irresponsible behavior. They can help nations that act responsibly to isolate and to facilitate appropriate actions against rule breakers. Norms can evolve from customary practices reflecting the self interest of individual states. These norms can be clarified by the passage of national laws or regulations, and if enough countries agree to the same customary practices, they can become codes of conduct with international standing. Some codes of conduct are deemed important enough – such as the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons or a ban on the possession and use of chemical and biological weapons -- as to warrant codification in treaty form. Even in the absence of formal codification, norm setting can help order potentially chaotic domains.
Three norms of responsible behavior in space are in greatest need of reinforcement: refraining from purposeful, harmful interference against objects in space; adopting practices to help with debris mitigation; and putting into place key elements of a space traffic management system. Glaring weaknesses in these norms became evident in the short span of 25 months when, beginning in January 2007, the Peoples Liberation Army tested a kinetic energy anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon. Then, in February 2007, a Russian rocket body exploded accidentally. In February 2008, the United States demonstrated an agile ASAT capability by destroying a dead satellite about to enter the earth's atmosphere. And in February 2009, a U.S. and a Russian satellite collided. Space operations vital to the national and economic security of all space-faring nations became more complicated and dangerous as a result of these events.
Existing norms protective of space objects are quite partial. For example, the International Telecommunications Union seeks to eliminate harmful interference with respect to the allotment of radio frequencies. In addition, several agreements contain provisions calling for no harmful interference with satellites employed to monitor treaty compliance. There are no norms related to purposeful, harmful interference for other types of satellites. The sole multilateral agreement relating to debris mitigation, the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee guidelines, subsequently endorsed by the United Nations, is voluntary in nature. Collision avoidance measures are just now being initiated, also on a voluntary basis.
Clearly, a greater level of effort to strengthen norms of responsible behavior in space is warranted. The Stimson Center, with the help of Nancy Gallagher at the University of Maryland, Victoria Samson and Brian Weedon at the Secure World Foundation, Theresa Hitchens at UNIDIR, and Laura Grego at the Union of Concerned Scientists, has developed a matrix of space norms, existing and proposed, strong, mild, and nonexistent. This matrix can be found at http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/Space_Matrix_3.xls My colleague at Stimson, Nate Cohn, has devised the matrix so that, if readers click on an individual box, the language in which the norm is embedded pops up.
We do not claim that this matrix is definitive. The feedback of our readers would be greatly appreciated. Please send feedback to Nathan Cohn ([email protected]).
Michael Krepon is co-founder and a Senior Associate at the Stimson Center
Courtesy: The Stimson Center, Washington D.C.
(The views expressed in the article are that of the author and do not represent the views of the editorial committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).
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