International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Ban Space-Based Weapons

Regina Hagen

Efforts to promote a ban of space-based weapons are underway in several places. This issue of the INESAP Information Bulletin documents the minutes of the June 6 session at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament where China submitted a working paper with "possible elements of the future international legal instrument on the prevention of the weaponization of outer space". On July 26, the Foreign Minister of Canada, John Manley, said that "Canada would be very happy to launch an initiative to see an international convention preventing the weaponization of space". In New Zealand, an expert on international law works on an appropriate draft treaty. And in Germany, an existing proposed Treaty on the Limitation of the Military Use of Outer Space (drafted by Horst Fischer, Eckart Maus, Reiner Labusch and Jürgen Scheffran in 1984) is being discussed again by an expert group.

A parallel initiative has now been launched in the US. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio (www.house.gov/kucinich), announced that on Oct. 2, 2001, he will introduce legislation into the US Congress to ban space-based weapons. "My bill will call for an immediate and permanent termination of research, testing, manufacturing, production, and deployment of all space-based weapons systems and components by any person, agency, or contractor of the US government."