COPUOS

After the first satellites were launched, there was great concern in the United Nations over whether or not the two military super powers at the time, the United States and the Soviet Union, would fight a final battle for world domination from the heavens. Obviously, nobody wanted geothermal nuclear war being fought over their heads, so the U.N. set up a committee to prevent such actions. The committee was called the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). COPUOS began as an ad hoc committee in 1958 and became a permanent committee in 1959. Of course, it is not coincidental that these dates roughly approximate the initiation of space travel and the so-called "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union. As might be expected, the workings of COPUOS are very political in natureÑespecially the work of the Legal SubcommitteeÑbecause COPUOS is a public international committee comprised of the official representatives of fifty-one nation-states.

When COPUOS was first formed, it consisted of eleven member nations. After it gained permanent committee status, it began to grow in size. Currently, there are 61 nations in this committee and since treaties dealing with the matters of outer space must be approved by consensus, this process is getting unwieldy. U.N. staff support for COPUOS comes from the Secretariat through the auspices of the Outer Space Affairs Division. During the early days of the space program consensus was much easier to obtain and with this consensus came some of the most far-reaching international agreements ever formed.

The method of drafting a treaty basically starts with a committee such as COPUOS drafting a treaty and passing it. The treaty then goes before the U.N. General Assembly where it is voted upon. A simple majority is required to pass a treaty. There are no vetoes like in the Security Council. If the treaty is passed by the General Assembly it is sent to the appropriate heads of state for ratification. In the U.S., the treaty goes to the President who signs it and refers the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification. After the Senate ratifies the treaty it becomes the Law of the Land in accordance with the procedures of the U.S. Constitution. The treaties take effect in the U.N. after they are ratified by a number of countries as specified in the treaty. These treaties are directed at countries; not at individuals or multinational corporations. The treaties do not impinge upon the sovereign power of the nation state. COPUOS created five international treaties since the organization was created.

These agreements are not very specific, but form a basis upon which to form further international space law. In a way they are very similar to our own U.S. Constitution.

The Legal Subcommittee of the ad hoc COPUOS recommended in 1959 that:

• the United Nations Charter (which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) (7) and the Statute of the International Court of Justice not be confined to Earth, but rather their provisions be extended to include outer space activities;
• extensive study of the principles and procedures which apply to the sea and to airspace be conducted to determine their relevance to space regulation; and
• the initial creation of a comprehensive code of space law is impracticable, but a set of general principles which would serve as a basis for subsequent law could be developed in response to the practical problems arising in this new environment (8).

These recommendations laid the foundation for the Outer Space Treaty which was opened for signatures seven years later.

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