E9.3 Revisiting Responsible Behaviour in Space

Serge PLATTARD

Senior Resident Fellow, European Space Policy Institute (ESPI)

While the growing dependence on space for a continuously broadening spectrum of application has demonstrated how beneficial it is, it has also become a factor of vulnerability and fragility. Indeed, the dynamics of space activity and the explosion of new services are such that, if they are to be sustainable, this vulnerability must be acknowledged at the highest level, with the appropriate resources. Intentionally undermining this dependence would have a direct impact on the economy, as well as on security and defence resources. Such unavoidable growing fragility of this space dependence, if not instability, necessitates, more than ever, responsible behaviour in space to become a common practice by every actor, following a set of norms, transparency and confidence building measures. Currently, a number of initiatives within the United Nations, both at the Disarmament Commission and in the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (e.g. Open Ended Working Groups on Reducing Space Threats through Norms, Rules, and Principles of Responsible Behaviors), have been launched to reach a consensus on what should be these best practices guaranteeing sustainable space activities, although nothing fully descriptive/operative has been proposed/endorsed so far. National initiatives and private sector engagement should also be acknowledged. In this paper, inspired by well-documented of some borderline behaviours which are common practice in the form of spatial signalling, we propose to draw up a non-exhaustive list of behaviours showing the limit of what would be considered as irresponsible, de facto directing to responsible space operations.