scholarly journals Could an optional protocol be the way to stop the weaponization of outer space?

Author(s):  
Paul Meyer

Since the early 1980s, the United Nations General Assembly and its affiliated forum, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, has had the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space issue on its agenda. In the intervening years, the threat of weapons being introduced into the outer space realm has waxed and waned, but, in the main, a benign environment free from man-made threats has prevailed, allowing for great strides in the exploration and use of space. Recently, a renewal of great power rivalry including the development of offensive ‘counter-space’ capabilities has resurrected the spectre of armed conflict in space. With widespread political support for the non-weaponization of outer space, has the time come to give legal expression to this goal by means of an optional protocol to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty?

Author(s):  
Stavrinaki Tina

This chapter examines the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The Optional Protocol was adopted along with the CRPD on 13 December 2006 by the United Nations General Assembly, and entered into force on 3 May 2008. The Optional Protocol establishes the competence of the Committee on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities to examine individual complaints with regard to alleged violations of the Convention by states parties to the Optional Protocol, and to undertake inquiries in case of reliable evidence of grave and systematic violations of the Convention. To date, among 175 parties to the Convention, ninety-two states have ratified the Optional Protocol.


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