How the U.N. Is Off Course in Outer Space

Publication Date: February 1985

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Juliana Geran Pilon

Research Area: International relations; Science and technology

Keywords: International organizations

Type: Report

Abstract:

U.N. discussions of outer space, particularly in COPUOS, largely have degenerated in the past few years into rhetoric. Most COPUOS member states no longer send technical experts to the meetings. Instead their representatives are diplomats with little or no scientific training. The disregard for the Committee's own principle of consensus led to the U.S. announcement of its intention to leave the Committee unless it observed its own regulations. As with UNESCO, the U.S. should quit COPUOS until substantial reforms are made in the way the Committee functions.