15 June 2006

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) held a short plenary session about Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) on Thursday 15 June. Japan, Algeria, Canada and Kazakhstan took the floor.

NGOs engaged with members of the Conference and displayed useful material and documents outside the Council Chamber in accordance with the CD's January 2004 decision. A wide range of disarmament NGOs with participants from six countries participated in this event arranged by the NGO Committee on Disarmament. The initiative was welcomed by a number of delegations.

Following the discussions about transparency and confidence building measures (TCBMs) in Tuesday’s session, both Japan and Kazakhstan emphasized their support for these measures. Kazakhstan welcomed “the recent statements by the UK and US that they do not have plans to build and place weapons in orbit, TCBMs can not be used as a substitute for a treaty but can play an instrumental role in promoting its objective.”

Algeria was concerned about that the trend of militarization in outer space could lead to an arms race and destabilize international security, leading to strategic imbalance. Algeria identified the development of new Anti-Ballistic Missile systems as a part of this trend.

Japan said the distinction between militarization and weaponization was unclear. ”We are not sure whether such a problem actually exists or not. Some mention was made to ”new concept weapons.” But what are they, where are they? Without specific explanations I cannot help but say they are part of science fiction.” Japan calls attention to a need to give further attention and expertise to these issues, so ambiguities are not intentionally used to either falsely accuse or obscure weapons development. Clear definitions and rules would also build confidence. Due to the inherent dual use nature of satellites, Japan wants a possible legal instrument to deal only with weaponization, regardless of the lack of clarity on its difference from militarization.

Kazakhstan was also concerned by definitions, both of weapons in outer space and verification. Kazakhstan agreed with China and Russia position that negotiating a PAROS Treaty without verification would be acceptable. ”Verification is not an easy issue, especially when [what is] subject to verification is yet to be defined. The Chinese proposal to put on hold for while a verification aspect of a future treaty is a pragmatic example how to deal with the issue of PAROS,” said Ambassador Kayrat Abusseitov.

Japan, Kazakhstan and Canada reiterated the call for better cooperation with other UN bodies, like COPUOS, ITU and the First and Fourth Committee of the General Assembly. Canada referred the UNIDIR conference, “Building the Architecture for Sustainable Space Security”, to when the incoming Chair of COPUOS spoke in the CD chamber. Canada announced they had submitted the report from this conference as an official document of the CD, and commended it to the delegates.

The next plenary meeting will be held Tuesday, 20 June. On Wednesday, 21 June, the Secretary General will make a statement to the Conference on Disarmament at 11 am. Thursday 22 June, will be the final plenary meeting of the second session of the CD.

-Beatrice Fihn, Disarmament Intern
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom